Visionary On The Advantages Of An 'Astral Body'

It is told, in Buddhi-theosophic Schools     There are rules     By observing which when mundane matter irks,     Or the world has gone amiss, you     Can incontinently issue     From the circumscribing tissue     Of your Works.     That the body and the gentleman inside     Can divide,     And the latter, if acquainted with the plan,     Can alleviate the tension     By remaining 'in suspension'     As a kind of fourth dimension     Bogie man.     And to such as mourn an Indian Solar Crime     At its prime,     'Twere a stratagem so luminously fit,     That tho' doctrinaires deny it,     And Academicians guy it,     I, for one, would like to try it     For a bit.     Just to leave one's earthly tenement asleep     In a heap,     And detachedly to watch it as it lies,     With an epidermis pickled     Where the prickly heat has prickled,     And a sense of being tickled     By the flies.     And to sit and loaf and idle till the day     Dies away,     In a duplicate ethereally cool,     Or around the place to potter,     (Tho' the flesh could hardly totter,)     As contented as an otter     In a pool!     'Let the pestilent mosquito do his worst     Till he burst,     Let him bore and burrow, morning, noon, and night,     If he finds the diet sweet, oh,     Who am I to place a veto     On the pestilent mosquito? -     Let him bite!'     O my cumbersome misfit of bone and skin,     Could I win     To the wisdom that would render me exempt     From the grosser bonds that tether     You and Astral Me together,     I should simply treat the weather     With contempt;     I should contemplate its horrors with entire     Lack of ire,     And pursuant to my comfortable aim,     With a snap at every shackle     I should quit my tabernacle,     And serenely sit and cackle     At the game!     But, alas! the 'mystic glory swims away,'     And the clay     Is as vulgarly persistent as of yore,     And the cuticle is pickled     Where the prickly heat has prickled,     And the nose and ears are tickled     As before;     And until the Buddhi-theosophic Schools     Print the rules     That will bring our tale of sorrows to a close,     Body mine, though others chide thee,     And consistently deride thee,     I shall have to stay inside thee,     I suppose!