A Day Off

Let us put awhile away

All the cares of work-a-day,

For a golden time forget,

Task and worry, toil and fret,

Let us take a day to dream

In the meadow by the stream.

We may lie in grasses cool

Fringing a pellucid pool,

We may learn the gay brook-runes

Sung on amber afternoons,

And the keen wind-rhyme that fills

Mossy hollows of the hills.

Where the wild-wood whisper stirs

We may talk with lisping firs,

We may gather honeyed blooms

In the dappled forest glooms,

We may eat of berries red

O'er the emerald upland spread.

We may linger as we will

In the sunset valleys still,

Till the gypsy shadows creep

From the starlit land of sleep,

And the mist of evening gray

Girdles round our pilgrim way.

We may bring to work again

Courage from the tasselled glen,

Bring a strength unfailing won

From the paths of cloud and sun,

And the wholesome zest that springs

From all happy, growing things.