A Day Off

Let us put awhile away All the cares of work-a-day, For a golden time forget, Task and worry, toil and fret, Let us take a day to dream In the meadow by the stream. We may lie in grasses cool Fringing a pellucid pool, We may learn the gay brook-runes Sung on amber afternoons, And the keen wind-rhyme that fills Mossy hollows of the hills. Where the wild-wood whisper stirs We may talk with lisping firs, We may gather honeyed blooms In the dappled forest glooms, We may eat of berries red O'er the emerald upland spread. We may linger as we will In the sunset valleys still, Till the gypsy shadows creep From the starlit land of sleep, And the mist of evening gray Girdles round our pilgrim way. We may bring to work again Courage from the tasselled glen, Bring a strength unfailing won From the paths of cloud and sun, And the wholesome zest that springs From all happy, growing things.