Rosemary and Pansies/The Waste of Life
THE WASTE OF LIFE
How much doth run to waste of human life!
What dreary controversies, profitless
And inessential, fruitful but of strife,
Engage our thoughts, fill us with bitterness!
We fritter thus the precious hours away,
As though infinity of time were ours.
In serious trifling or in idle play.
Mistaking chaff for corn and weeds for flowers;
Wisdom we scorn and follies we pursue.
And such fantastic actions perpetrate,
We lose the power to tell the false from true,
And all our nature grows sophisticate:
Such has been, is, and—must I say?—shall be
The tragic lot of poor humanity.
What dreary controversies, profitless
And inessential, fruitful but of strife,
Engage our thoughts, fill us with bitterness!
We fritter thus the precious hours away,
As though infinity of time were ours.
In serious trifling or in idle play.
Mistaking chaff for corn and weeds for flowers;
Wisdom we scorn and follies we pursue.
And such fantastic actions perpetrate,
We lose the power to tell the false from true,
And all our nature grows sophisticate:
Such has been, is, and—must I say?—shall be
The tragic lot of poor humanity.