Classic Poem

I LONG not for riches, I long not for wealth —
The goddess I worship is rosy young health;
For wealth, it but deepens the wrinkles of care,
And oft steals the bloom from the cheek that is fair.
In gathering wealth some are gathering woe,
For the more that they get all the poorer they grow;
They lose life's enjoyment in holding it fast,
Till it either leaves them or they leave it at last.

A fig for your scholar who puzzles and looks,
And sees Nature's ways but in musty old books!
Can Greek or can grammar, can science or art,
Confer on a fool e'er a head or a heart?
And what's all this digging and hoeing about?
If genius is in, it will find its way out.
'Neath great loads of learning they stagger and groan —
Oh, let me have little, if that is mine own!

I'm sick of refinement, I'm weary of art,
I hate all refinement that withers the heart;
Away with your dandies, your creatures of steam,
With nothing but buttons where hearts should have been.
Still give me the laugh of the children at play,
For where is the monarch as happy as they?
Away with all tinsel — 'tis foolish, 'tis vain —
Like them let us live with old Nature again.