I would not live always; I ask not to stay, <br />Where I must bear the burden and heat of the day: <br />Where my body is cut with the lash or the cord, <br />And a hovel and hunger are all my reward. <br /> <br /> <br />I would not live always, where life is a load <br />To the flesh and the spirit:-since there's an abode <br />For the soul disenthralled, let me breathe my last breath, <br />And repose in thine arms, my deliverer, Death!- <br /> <br /> <br />I would not live always to toil as a slave: <br />O no, let me rest, though I rest in my grave; <br />For there, from their troubling, the wicked shall cease, <br />And, free from his master, the slave be at peace.<br /><br />John Pierpont<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-would-not-live-always/
