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O working-world! while rest is sweet,
And ease a welcome comer,
Only your blithest songs are meet
For the queen-month of summer.

 

And while her plenteous harvest bless
And bind the year together,
I sing the month of idleness,
The pleasant August weather.

 

For her the others toil and spin,
Her bounden treasure-heapers,
Till all the wealth is gathered in
And ready for the reapers.

 

Till like the lilies fair to view
She sits in covert shady,
With nothing in the world to do
But play the royal lady.

 

And scatter with a lavish hand
The largess they have brought her
For fair and fruitful is the land
Of the sun's favorite daughter.

 

These are the days that reign in right
Of royal pride and beauty;
That owe the world no tribute-mite
Of sober working-duty.

 

These are the nights that lie awake
To pleasant sounds to listen
And with their open beauty, make
The star-eyed heavens glisten.

 

When faint upon the dusty ways
We pause amid the toiling,
Then hail the August holidays,
The yearly disenthralling.

 

From crowded streets the dwellers wind--
(The gentler clouds have pity
On that wan sufferer left behind,
The poor sun-stricken city.)

 

Far from the striving and the din,
They walk beside the ocean,
And drop their restless lives within
That mighty heart's commotion.

 

The world has come up to your doors,
O holy mountain-places!
Her feet are on your silent floors;
And where the tangled traces

 

Of rocky woodland paths betray
Some fairy grotto hidden,
The native dwellers shrink away
From guests that come unbidden.

 

Fair are the country's quiet nooks,
And sweet the clover meadows;
Our lives are like the shrunken brooks
That creep into the shadows.

 

We'll let the mill-wheels stand awhile,
And we'll go down with dances,
Down by ourselves to sit and smile
At our own idle fancies.

 

Sing to ourselves, and never mind
The care of rhythm-keeping;
For who should tell it but the wind?
And soft! he too is sleeping!

 

However soon the visions melt
Beyond these valley portals,
Once in Arcadia we have dwelt,
And piped to the immortals.