Work

Who first invented work, and bound the free

And holyday-rejoicing spirit down

To the ever-haunting importunity

Of business in the green fields, and the town--

To plough, loom, anvil, spade--and oh! most sad

To that dry drudgery at the desks dead wood?

Who but the Being unblest, alien from good,

Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad

Task ever plies mid rotatory burnings,

That round and round incalculably reel--

For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel--

In that red realm from which are no returnings:

Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye

He, and his thoughts, keep pensive working-day.