Classic Poem

Send this man to the mine, this to the battle,
Famish an aged beggar at your gates,
And let him die by inches--but for worlds
Lift not your hand against him--Live, live on,
As if this earth owned neither steel nor arsenic,
A rope, a river, or a standing pool.
Live, if you dread the pains of hell, or think
Your corpse would quarrel with a stake--alas
Has misery then no friend?--if you would die
By license, call the dropsy and the stone
And let them end you--strange it is;
And most fantastic are the magic circles
Drawn round the thing called life--till we have learned
To prize it less, we ne'er shall learn to prize
The things worth living for.--