Ode To Work In Springtime

Oh, would that working I might shun,         From labour my connection sever,     That I might do a bit - or none         Whatever!     That I might wander over hills,         Establish friendship with a daisy,     O'er pretty things like daffodils         Go crazy!     That I might at the heavens gaze,         Concern myself with nothing weighty,     Loaf, at a stretch, for seven days -         Or eighty.     Why can't I cease a slave to be,         And taste existence beatific     On some fair island, hid in the         Pacific?     Instead of sitting at a desk         'Mid undone labours, grimly lurking -     Oh, say, what is there picturesque         In working?     But no! - to loaf were misery! -         I love to work! Hang isles of coral!     (To end this otherwise would be         Immoral!)              Thomas R. Ybarra.