When the lamps’ flame from golden statues gleams,
Do the lights vie with the sun’s beams?
Must music to stir hearts to leap and bound,
From frescoed walls and fretted roofs resound?
Or if some time hot fever racks the head,
Are you, tossing on a sick bed,
Easier at all that you chance to lie
On cedarn couch purple with Tyrian dye?
Know you not, wastrels, that what Mind you give
To flesh you steal from power to live?