Dost thou live, man, dost thou live,—or only breathe and labour?
Art thou free, or enslaved to a routine, the daily machinery of habit?
For, one man is quickened into life, where thousands exist as in a torpor,
Feeding, toiling, sleeping, an insensate weary round:
The plough, or the ledger, or the trade, with animal cares and indolence,
Make the mass of vital years a heavy lump unleavened.
Drowsily lie down in thy dulness, fettered with the irons of circumstance,
Thou wilt not wake to think and feel a minute in a month.
The epitome of common life is seen in the common epitaph,
Born on such a day, and dead on such another, with an interval of threescore years.