V

How can I think, or edge my thoughts to action,

When the miserly press of each day's need

Aches to a narrowness of spilled distraction

My soul appalled at the world's work's time-greed?

How can I pause my thoughts upon the task

My soul was born to think that it must do

When every moment has a thought to ask

To fit the immediate craving of its cue?

The coin I'd heap for marrying my Muse

And build our home i'th' greater Time-to-be

Becomes dissolved by needs of each day's use

And I feel beggared of infinity,

Like a true-Christian sinner, each day flesh-driven

By his own act to forfeit his wished heaven.