A Translation

by Rudyard Kipling

There are whose study is of smells,
 And to attentive schools rehearse
How something mixed with something else
 Makes something worse.

Some cultivate in broths impure
 The clients of our body, these,
Increasing without Venus, cure,
 Or cause, disease.

Others the heated wheel extol,
 And all its offspring, whose concern
Is how to make it farthest roll
 And fastest turn.

Me, much incurious if the hour
 Present, or to be paid for, brings
Me to Brundusium by the power
 Of wheels or wings;

Me, in whose breast no flame hath burned 
 Life-long, save that by Pindar lit,
Such lore leaves cold. I am not turned
 Aside to it

More than when, sunk in thought profound
 Of what the unaltering Gods require,
My steward (friend but slave) brings round
 Logs for my fire.