⁠And whether indeed they be or be not,
⁠Try not, test not, feel not, see not:
⁠'Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise
⁠By leading, opening ne'er your eyes;
Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave,
And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave.

⁠'Tis the stern and prompt suppressing,
⁠As an obvious deadly sin,
⁠All the questing and the guessing
⁠Of the soul's own soul within:
⁠'Tis the coward acquiescence
⁠In a destiny's behest,
⁠To a shade by terror made,
⁠Sacrificing, aye, the essence
⁠Of all that 's truest, noblest, best:
⁠'Tis the blind non-recognition
⁠Either of goodness, truth, or beauty,
⁠Except by precept and submission;
⁠Moral blank, and moral void,
⁠Life at very birth destroyed,
⁠Atrophy, exinanition!
⁠Duty! ————
⁠Yea, by duty's prime condition
⁠Pure nonentity of duty!