Toil’s Guerdon [poem by William Blocksidge (William Baylebridge)]

[Editor: This poem by William Blocksidge (also known as William Baylebridge) was published in Songs o’ the South (1908).]

Toil’s Guerdon

What man that has not known an end attained —
A time the blood, at some high-gotten deed,
Has pulsed along at passing fever speed,
And would not to mean measure be constrained?
This he best knows whose stubborn will has chained,
To better serve some high conception’s need,
All minor mortal joys. Such is decreed
In just proportion to the pleasure gained.
None falter in the shades of dark despair
But those who laze to trim the lamp within:
A darkened mind’s a breeding place for Sin,
Whose direful progeny its entrails tear.
Thus Pleasure finds in Toil her rightful heir;
And painful crime is theirs whom Sloth can win

Source:
William Blocksidge, Songs o’ the South, London: Watts, 1908, p. 44