Dramatic Scenes :: :: University of Virginia Library

Pleasant it is, that doing nothing,
Never moving—thinking—scheming;
Idle only,—dozing,—dreaming
On a sward of quiet green,
By the rippling river seen;

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Where the alders in a row,
When the morning breezes blow,
Whisper to the plumy boughs
Of an elm, that overhead
Doth a cooling shadow shed:
In the leaves, perhaps, a dove
Breathes her little note of love;
Else all silent.—On the wall
Let the summer sunshine fall,
On the meadow, on the mill,
Idle now, amid the sedge
Thickening at the water's edge,
And upon the far, soft, azure-curtained hill.
Far be every human ill!
Far be tears, far be sighing!
Nothing gloomy; let the Day
Run upon his cheerful way;
While over me and over all
Silver clouds are flying.

Much, indeed, I love to walk
With a friend, in easy talk,
On the downs, in June or May;
On the downs, that stretch away,
Far away,—far away,—
From the white-browed cliffs that keep
Watch above the toiling Deep,
Listening there night and day

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What the troubled Waters say;
For they often writhe and moan,
From the mid Atlantic blown,
And will tell you ghastly tales,
Of what befalleth in the gales,
Till you steal unto your rest
With a pain upon your breast.

Yet, how pleasant nothing doing!
What is all the worth of wooing?
Loving?—when you may inspire
Warmth beside the winter fire,

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Caring nought what may betide you,
With a book you love beside you,
(Landor's verse or Browning's rhyme,
Or some volume of old time
Loved when Fiction, nurse of youth,
Fed you with the milk of Truth,)—
All the while the rough storm rages,
As you doze above the pages,
Half-ashamed the charmer Sleep
Should take you to her deepest deep,
With such wealth before you.
Yet, till gentle Sleep restore you
To your merry morning fancies,
Pleasant is the dream that dances
Up and down before your eyes,
As the misty daylight dies;
Pleasant are the scraps and lines,
That no conscious sense divines,
Murmurs,—sounds,—that come and go
Just as lapsing waters flow;
Now a whisper, like the South
Breathing from a loving mouth,
Then the silence,—softest,—best,
Till you—fade away to rest!

Pleasant all! And yet there streams
Beyond it, like a light in dreams,
Something even the Idler seeth,

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When his idle humour fleeth;
Something that the dull brain fireth,
And the ambitious Soul desireth;
Regions where the poet's vision
Openeth into fields Elysian;
Gardens, with their clustering gold;
Castles, rich with pictures old,
Done by famous painters dead,
Ere the Heroic Spirit fled,
Leaving Earth to later glories,
Fitted, each in turn, for stories
That would crown the Artist's fame,
Were he worthy of his name.

Idler!—Let his idling cease,
If he hope to dwell in peace,
Such a peace as Labour gives
Unto every one that lives;
Let him seek,—nor idly seek,
But wear his toil upon his cheek:
What he seeketh he shall find,
Food for every mood of mind;
Learning, culled from antique bowers;
Science, sweet in midnight hours;
Music, silvering down in showers;
All that Poets wise have brought
From the inner realms of Thought;
All that the master, Love, can teach, amidst a world of flowers.