sordid

He stoop'd in all men's sight

To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,

And sunk in that dead sea of life,

To stoop to any prey mat soars not upwards.

Sordid and dungnill minds, compos*d of earth.

In that gross element fix all their happiness ;

An alien to the daily round of talk,

Mute when the sordid songs of earth are sung.

And, in a mortal sorrow, still pursue

Thro' sordid streets and lanes

And houses brown and bare

In the most unclean cell

Of sordid Hell,

And worried by the most ingenious hate,

The sunshine lovelier than the rose,

The sordid gravity they wear

Who poverty's base burthen bear!

To Jacob in the field, 'Rejoice!'

Serve on some seven more sordid years,

Too short for weariness or tears;

Which kept you in your sky!

But, when the sordid Trader caught

The loose-held sceptre from your hands distraught,