Hugh Kingsmill

'Tis Summer Time on Bredon, And now the farmers swear: The cattle rise and listen In valleys far and near, And blush at what they hear.But when the mists in autumn On Bredon top are thick,

Like enough, you won't be glad, When they come to hang you, lad: But bacon's not the only thing That's cured by hanging from a string.

The reward of renunciation is some good greater than the thing renounced. To renounce with no vision of such a good, from fear or in automatic obedience to a formula, is to weaken the springs of life, and to diminish the soul's resistance …