Into this crazy human state.
Where find I aid? what follow? what eschew?
Shall I that impulse of my soul obey?
Alas! alas! but I must feel it true,
The pains we suffer and the deeds we do,
Are clogs alike in the free spirit’s way.
The godlike essence of our heaven-born powers
Must yield to strange and still more strange intrusion;
Soon as the good things of this world are ours,
We deem our nobler self a vain illusion,