This Present Hour

No time have we for rest, no time for sleeping;
The leaden cultivation of our toil
Us keeps from evening's natural reprieve,
And we compliant, remain for the reaping
Of the somber soil,
Reward without relief.

No space have we for thought, nor thought to muse on;
Its flights for us a kingdom bring no more,
But only afterprovince of the blind;
And left to us a quiet hell's confusion,
What was before
The heaven of the mind.

No place have we for love, space for desire;
And always on the second subway-track
Is Paolo by Francesca onward led,
Who for his pleading comes not any nigher,
Nor looks she back,
Always a car's length ahead.

Afterstrain:

What was our work is now our thoughtless toil,
And prior love but imparticular lust;
And love's laborers, returning to the soil,
Take their wage from the sand, their reward from the dust.

-Thomas Banks-

P.S.- If you don't know who Paolo and Francesca were, read Dante's Inferno.