Ask Me No More

Ask me no more if with life I am content
No word or deed of which I now repent
No hasty action, no negligent omission
Rightly deserving others’ cutting admonition

Ask me no more if I have lived a virtuous life
Free from conflict, devoid of hostility or strife
For virtue is not simply some personal rectitude
But the moral life lived amidst the multitude

Ask me no more how happiness be gained
Does it demand all passion be constrained
But would such existence lose all humanity
Bound down by false notions or morality

Ask me no more if a conclusion I have reached
So many questions, I feel like a man impeached
Contentment, virtue, happiness, all three
Ask of me no more, but simply let me be

Ken Fisher

[First line each verse with due deference to
Thomas Carew – 1595-1640]