IDLENESS.

The street was brisk, an animated scene,

And every man was on some business bent,

Absorbed in some employment or intent,

Pre-occupied, intelligent and keen.

True, some were dwarf'd and some were pale and lean.

But to the sorriest visage Labor lent

A light, transfiguring with her sacrament

The abject countenance and slavish mien.

But one — he shambled aimlessly along

Asham'd, and shrunk from the abstracted ken

Of passers-by with conscience-struck recoil,

A pariah, a leper in the throng,

An alien from the commonwealth of men,

A stranger to the covenant of toil.