Conscience

Conscience 

Conscience is instinct bred in the house, 

Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin 

By an unnatural breeding in and in. 

I say, Turn it out doors, 

Into the moors. 

I love a life whose plot is simple, 

And does not thicken with every pimple, 

A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it, 

That makes the universe no worse than 't finds it. 

I love an earnest soul, 

Whose mighty joy and sorrow 

Are not drowned in a bowl, 

And brought to life to-morrow; 

That lives one tragedy, 

And not seventy; 

A conscience worth keeping; 

Laughing not weeping; 

A conscience wise and steady, 

And forever ready; 

Not changing with events, 

Dealing in compliments; 

A conscience exercised about 

Large things, where one may doubt. 

I love a soul not all of wood, 

Predestinated to be good, 

But true to the backbone 

Unto itself alone, 

And false to none; 

Born to its own affairs, 

Its own joys and own cares; 

By whom the work which God begun 

Is finished, and not undone; 

Taken up where he left off, 

Whether to worship or to scoff; 

If not good, why then evil, 

If not good god, good devil. 

Goodness! you hypocrite, come out of that, 

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat. 

I have no patience towards 

Such conscientious cowards. 

Give me simple laboring folk, 

Who love their work, 

Whose virtue is song 

To cheer God along. 

Henry David Thoreau