| |
| I SAW an idler on a summer day | |
| Piping with Iris by a dancing brook; | |
| And all his world was rife with Pleasures gay, | |
| And languid Follies smiled from every nook. | |
| |
| I saw an artist in a world of dreams, | 5 |
| His rainbow rising from his radiant task, | |
| To throw its magic prism beams | |
| O’er Fancy’s changeful masque and counter-masque. | |
| |
| I saw Toil—stooping underneath a world | |
| Whereon his foster-brothers lighter tread, | 10 |
| His skyward pinions ever closer furled | |
| Before the grim necessity of bread! | |
| |
| I saw a sinner working hard to be | |
| Worthy his death-wage from the mint of time; | |
| I saw a sailor, unto whom the sea | 15 |
| Was hearth and hope and love and wedding-chime. | |
| |
| I saw a mother living in her child— | |
| I saw a saint among his fellow men— | |
| Brave soldiery before my eyes defiled | |
| And solemn-hearted scholars—Sudden then | 20 |
| |
| I cried: “The stars are no less neighborly | |
| In their ethereal remoteness swung, | |
| Than these near human orbits wherein we | |
| Live out our lives and speak our chosen tongue! | |
| |
| “Love seek through all—less there be one | 25 |
| Least soul unlit within the night— | |
| And over all, the selfsame sun | |
| Give each creation light!” | |
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