Ye live on coward wise, without dream or design,

Older, decrepiter than is th’infecund earth.

By the assassin age castrated from your birth

Of every passion deep and every thought divine.

Void is your brain, as void as is your heart, in fine,

And eke you have befouled this world of little worth

With such corrupted blood and such a breath of dearth

That death alone may germ from out its mud and brine.

God-murderers, men, the times undistant are, when, rolled

Together in some coign, upon a heap of gold,

Having the fostering earth even to the granite pilled.