Impatience

Impatience

Vain drug! If I am sick

Can others’ sickness heal?

Or dead, death make me quick?

I care not what they feel.

What reck I? Let me go.

Is not my bosom full?

The sorrow that I know

Makes others’ sorrow dull.

I will shut up the soul,

For only joy is just.

Stones with the river roll,

And we ev’n as we must.

Why should I think of thee,

O Wisdom, and thy lies?

Better laugh and foolish be

Than laugh not and be wise.

The wild-birds heed thee not;

Of thee no torrents roar;

The deep seas know no jot

Of all thy little lore;

But man who cannot ’scape

To follow thee and trust,

Thou takest by the nape

And grindest in the dust.