The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Bad Prince.
By Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Mentola al comun corpo.
Organ of rut, not reason, is the lord
Who from the body politic doth drain
Lust for himself, instead of toil and pain,
Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward.
Well too if he like Love would filch our hoard
With pleasure to ourselves, sluicing our vein
And vigour to perpetuate the strain
Of life by spilth of life within us stored!
Love's cheat yields joy and profit. Kings, less kind,
Harm those they hoodwink; sow bare rock with seed;
Nor use our waste to propagate the breed.
Heaven help that body which a little mind,
Housed in a head, lacking ears, tongue, and eyes,
And senseless but for smell, can tyrannise!