For empty are both mind and heart While thou with me dost linger; More profit would to thee impart A babe that sucks its finger.
I know thou hast a better way To spend these hours thou squand'rest; Some lad toils in the trough to-day Who groans because thou wand'rest;
A bleating sheep he dowses now Or wrestles with ram's terror; Ah, 'mid the washing's hubbub, how His sighs reproach thine error!
He knows and loves thee, Idleness; For when his sheep are browsing, His open eyes enchant and bless A mind divinely drowsing;
No slave to sleep, he wills and sees From hill-lawns the brown tillage; Green winding lanes and clumps of trees, Far town or nearer village,
The sea itself; the fishing feet Where more, thine idle lovers, Heark'ning to sea-mews find thee sweet Like him who hears the plovers.
Begone; those haul their ropes at sea, These plunge sheep in yon river: Free, free from toil thy friends, and me From Idleness deliver!
To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside. Passing for ever, he fares; and on either hand, Deep in the gardens golden pavilions hide, Nestle in orchard bloom, and far on the level land Call him with lighted lamp in the eventide.
Thick as the stars at night when the moon is down, Pleasures assail him. He to his nobler fate Fares; and but waves a hand as he passes on, Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate, Sings but a boyish stave and his face is gone.
I know you: solitary griefs, Desolate passions, aching hours! I know you: tremulous beliefs, Agonised hopes, and ashen flowers!
The winds are sometimes sad to me; The starry spaces, full of fear: Mine is the sorrow on the sea, And mine the sigh of places drear.
Some players upon plaintive strings Publish their wistfulness abroad: I have not spoken of these things, Save to one man, and unto God.
God, if this were enough, That I see things bare to the buff And up to the buttocks in mire; That I ask nor hope nor hire, Nut in the husk, Nor dawn beyond the dusk, Nor life beyond death: God, if this were faith?
Having felt thy wind in my face Spit sorrow and disgrace, Having seen thine evil doom In Golgotha and Khartoum, And the brutes, the work of thine hands, Fill with injustice lands And stain with blood the sea: If still in my veins the glee Of the black night and the sun And the lost battle, run: If, an adept, The iniquitous lists I still accept With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood, And still to battle and perish for a dream of good God, if that were enough?