Rest

TO-DAY I’ll give to peace : I will not look
Behind, before me ; I will simply be ;
    Hopes and regrets shall claim no share in me ;
Here will I lie, beside the leaping brook,
And turn the pages of some aimless book,
    Sunk and submerged in vague felicity ;
    Live, mute, and still, in what I hear and see,
The dreaming guardian of the upland nook.

Well, here’s my world to-day ! cicalas spare
    Sawing harsh music ; beetles big, that grope
Among the grass-stems ; merry flies astir ;
And goats with impudent face and silken hair,
    That poise and tinkle on the Western slope,
Breast deep in Alpen-rose and juniper.