Deveron days

Philosophy’s poor vagar ies,—
What can they be to you ?
But the din of some antic tourney
To warriors worn with fight,
But the echoes of idle revels
To watchers in the night.
Toil-worn hands and weary,
Furrowed cheek and brow—
Oh, I know the pigmy measure
Of my nimble nostrums now;
Something for dainty sinnings,
Something for dainty woes,—
But what for the unvoiced sadness
The joyless toiler knows ?
Oh, culture, shall I curse you ?
Bound in your silken gyves
I have lived till now unknowing
The pathos of empty lives;
Unknowing and undreaming
That where the yeanlings bleat,
Where the happy wind of summer
Bends low the bladed wheat,
33
c