AT UTTER LOAF.

An afternoon as ripe with heat

As might the golden pippin be

With mellowness if at my feet

It dropped now from the apple-tree

My hammock swings in lazily.

The boughs about me spread a shade

That shields me from the sun, but weaves

With breezy shuttles through the leaves

Blue rifts of skies, to gleam and fade

Upon the eyes that only see

Just of themselves, all drowsily.

Above me drifts the fallen skein

Of some tired spider, looped and blown,

As fragile as a strand of rain,

Across the air, and upward thrown

By breaths of hayfields newly mown —

So glimmering it is and fine,

I doubt these drowsy eyes of mine.

Far-off and faint as voices pent

In mines, and heard from underground,

Come murmurs as of discontent,

And clamorings of sullen sound

The city sends me, as, I guess,

To vex me, though they do but bless

Me in my drowsy fastnesses.

I have no care. I only know

My hammock hides and holds me here

In lands of shade a prisoner:

While lazily the breezes blow

Light leaves of sunshine over me,

And back and forth and to and fro

I swing, enwrapped in some hushed glee,

Smiling at all things drowsily.