My friends, why should we live?

My friends, why should we live?
Life is an idle war a toilsome peace;
To-day I would not give
One small consent for its securest ease.

Shall we out-wear the year
In our pavilions on its dusty plain
And yet no signal hear
To strike our tents and take the road again?

Or else drag up the slope
The heavy ordnance of nature's train?
Useless but in the hope,
Some far remote and heavenward hill to gain.