Idleness.

The rain is playing its soft pleasant tune     Fitfully on the skylight, and the shade     Of the fast flying clouds across my book     Passes with delicate change. My merry fire     Sings cheerfully to itself; my musing cat     Purrs as she wakes from her unquiet sleep,     And looks into my face as if she felt     Like me the gentle influence of the rain.     Here have I sat since morn, reading sometimes,     And sometimes listening to the faster fall     Of the large drops, or rising with the stir     Of an unbidden thought, have walked awhile     With the slow steps of indolence, my room,     And then sat down composedly again     To my quaint book of olden poetry.     It is a kind of idleness, I know;     And I am said to be an idle man -     And it is very true. I love to go     Out in the pleasant sun, and let my eye     Rest on the human faces that pass by,     Each with its gay or busy interest;     And then I muse upon their lot, and read     Many a lesson in their changeful cast,     And so grow kind of heart, as if the sight     Of human beings were humanity.     And I am better after it, and go     More gratefully to my rest, and feel a love     Stirring my heart to every living thing,     And my low prayer has more humility,     And I sink lightlier to my dreams - and this,     'Tis very true, is only idleness!     I love to go and mingle with the young     In the gay festal room - when every heart     Is beating faster than the merry tune,     And their blue eyes are restless, and their lips     Parted with eager joy, and their round cheeks     Flushed with the beautiful motion of the dance.     'Tis sweet, in the becoming light of lamps,     To watch a brow half shaded, or a curl     Playing upon a neck capriciously,     Or, unobserved, to watch in its delight,     The earnest countenance of a child. I love     To look upon such things, and I can go     Back to my solitude, and dream bright dreams     For their fast coming years, and speak of them     Earnestly in my prayer, till I am glad     With a benevolent joy - and this, I know,     To the world's eye, is only idleness!     And when the clouds pass suddenly away,     And the blue sky is like a newer world,     And the sweet growing things - forest and flower,     Humble and beautiful alike - are all     Breathing up odors to the very heaven -     Or when the frost has yielded to the sun     In the rich autumn, and the filmy mist     Lies like a silver lining on the sky,     And the clear air exhilarates, and life     Simply, is luxury - and when the hush     Of twilight, like a gentle sleep, steals on,     And the birds settle to their nests, and stars     Spring in the upper sky, and there is not     A sound that is not low and musical -     At all these pleasant seasons I go out     With my first impulse guiding me, and take     Woodpath, or stream, or sunny mountain side,     And, in my recklessness of heart, stray on,     Glad with the birds, and silent with the leaves,     And happy with the fair and blessed world -     And this, 'tis true, is only idleness!     And I should love to go up to the sky,     And course the heaven like stars, and float away     Upon the gliding clouds that have no stay     In their swift journey - and 'twould be a joy     To walk the chambers of the deep, and tread     The pearls of its untrodden floor, and know     The tribes of its unfathomable depths -     Dwellers beneath the pressure of a sea!     And I should love to issue with the wind     On a strong errand, and o'ersweep the earth,     With its broad continents and islands green,     Like to the passing of a presence on! -     And this, 'tis true, were only idleness!