Sheep are the shepherd's business,--let me go,--
Piping his pastime when the sun is low:
But I, alas! the other order keep,
Piping my business, and forgot my sheep.
My song that once was as a little sweet
Savouring the daily bread we all must eat,
Lo! it has come to be my only food:
And, as a lover of the Indian weed
Steals to a self-indulgent solitude,
To draw the dreamy sweetness from its root,
So from the strong blithe world of valorous deed
I steal away to suck this singing weed;
And while the morning gathers up its strength,
And while the noonday runneth on in might,
Until the shadows and the evening light
Come and awake me with a fear at length,
Prone in some hankering covert hid away,
Fain am I still my piping to prolong,
And for the largess of a bounteous day
Dare pay my maker with a paltry song.
Welcome the song that like a trumpet high
Lifts the tired head of battle with its cry,
Welcome the song that from its morning heights
Cheers jaded markets with the health of fields,
Brings down the stars to mock the city lights.
Or up to heaven a shining ladder builds.
But not to me belongeth such a grace,
And, were it mine, 'tis not in amorous shade
To river music that such song is made:
The song that moves the battle on awoke
To the stern rhythm of the swordsman's stroke,
The song that fans the city's weary face
Sprang not afar from out some leafy place,
But bubbled spring-like in its dingiest lane
From out a heart that shared the city's pain;
And he who brings the stars into the street
And builds that shining ladder for our feet,
Dwells in no mystic Abora aloof,
But shares the shelter of the common roof;
He learns great metres from the thunderous hum,
And all his songs pulse to the human beat.
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