Leisure Leisure,thou goddess of a bygone age,When hours were long and days sufficed to hold Wide-eyed delights and pleasures uncontrolled By shortening moments,when no gaunt presage Of undone duties,modern heritage,Haunted our happy minds;must thou withhold Thy presence from this over-busy world,And bearing silence with thee disengage Our twined fortunes?Deeps of unhewn woods Alone can cherish thee,alone possess Thy quiet,teeming vigor.This our crime:
Not to have worshipped,marred by alien moods That sole condition of all loveliness,The dreaming lapse of slow,unmeasured time.
On Carpaccio's Picture:The Dream of St.Ursula Swept,clean,and still,across the polished floor From some unshuttered casement,hid from sight,The level sunshine slants,its greater light Quenching the little lamp which pallid,poor,Flickering,unreplenished,at the door Has striven against darkness the long night.
Dawn fills the room,and penetrating,bright,The silent sunbeams through the window pour.
And she lies sleeping,ignorant of Fate,Enmeshed in listless dreams,her soul not yet Ripened to bear the purport of this day.
The morning breeze scarce stirs the coverlet,A shadow falls across the sunlight;wait!
A lark is singing as he flies away.
The Matrix Goaded and harassed in the factory That tears our life up into bits of days Ticked off upon a clock which never stays,Shredding our portion of Eternity,We break away at last,and steal the key Which hides a world empty of hours;ways Of space unroll,and Heaven overlays The leafy,sun-lit earth of Fantasy.
Beyond the ilex shadow glares the sun,Scorching against the blue flame of the sky.
Brown lily-pads lie heavy and supine Within a granite basin,under one The bronze-gold glimmer of a carp;and IReach out my hand and pluck a nectarine.
Monadnock in Early Spring Cloud-topped and splendid,dominating all The little lesser hills which compass thee,Thou standest,bright with April's buoyancy,Yet holding Winter in some shaded wall Of stern,steep rock;and startled by the call Of Spring,thy trees flush with expectancy And cast a cloud of crimson,silently,Above thy snowy crevices where fall Pale shrivelled oak leaves,while the snow beneath Melts at their phantom touch.Another year Is quick with import.Such each year has been.