Why Is This World So Hard to Bear?

    Why is this world so hard to bear?
Why is this human nature of my kind
            Repellant in extreme?
I see what men desire, for what they dream,
Work, toil, and cheat, above all everywhere
To justice and to virtue wholly blind.

    Why do the young men flail, and fall?
Why do the old give up their souls so early?
            Why even more are women
Inherently or taught, mostly inhuman,
Treating their men worth not a mote at all?
(I have some past remembrance I see clearly.)

    Why do the mass of men, without
Concern for any but their meager profit
            All laws of decency
Utterly disregard, make nullity,
And them that do adhere to reason flout?
One rides his high horse and will not come off it.

    Lord, men are taxed and bled; in debt
None find relief by even their own labors.
            The overseers make sure
That men accomplish all they may endure
Being discarded wrung of their last sweat,
Each man’s small gains being coveted by neighbors.

    Tonight I long for rest, as said
The poet in his verse—whom I admire
            But cannot emulate,
Because for me the evening has grown late
As dusk appears, and soon I will be dead,
Vanquished all objects of my least desire.