Not careworn from the world’s soul-squandering ways,
Calm days that loiter with snow-silent tread,
Nor break my commune with the undying dead;
Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day,
That come unhid, and claimless glide away
By shelves that sun them in the indulgent Past,
Where Spanish castles, even, were built to last,
Where saint and sage their silent vigil keep,
And wrong hath ceased or sung itself to sleep. 110
Dear were my walks, too, gathering fragrant store
Of Mother Nature’s simple-minded lore: 
I learned all weather-signs of day or night;
No bird but I could name him by his flight,
No distant tree but by his shape was known,
Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone. 
This learning won by loving looks I hived
As sweeter lore than all from books derived. 
I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood,
Of lake and stream, and the sky’s downy brood, 120
Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod,
But friends with hardhack, aster, goldenrod,
Or succory keeping summer long its trust
Of heaven-blue fleckless from the eddying dust: 
These were my earliest friends, and latest too,
Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. 
For years I had these treasures, knew their worth,
Estate most real man can have on earth. 
I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose
That hears but rumors of earth’s wrongs and woes; 130
Too well these Capuas could my muscles waste,
Not void of toils, but toils of choice and taste;
These still had kept me could I but have quelled
The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled. 
But there were times when silent were my books
As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks,
When verses palled, and even the woodland path,
By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath,
And I must twist my little gift of words
Into a scourge of rough and knotted cords 140
Unmusical, that whistle as they swing
To leave on shameless backs their purple sting.

How slow Time comes!  Gone who so swift as he? 
Add but a year, ’tis half a century
Since the slave’s stifled moaning broke my sleep,
Heard ’gainst my will in that seclusion deep,
Haply heard louder for the silence there,
And so my fancied safeguard made my snare. 
After that moan had sharpened to a cry,
And a cloud, hand-broad then, heaped all our sky 150
With its stored vengeance, and such thunders stirred
As heaven’s and earth’s remotest chambers heard,
I looked to see an ampler atmosphere
By that electric passion-gust blown clear. 
I looked for this; consider what I see—­
But I forbear, ’twould please nor you nor me
To check the items in the bitter list
Of all I counted on and all I mist. 
Only three instances I choose from all,
And each enough to stir a pigeon’s gall:  160
Office a fund for ballot-brokers made
To pay the drudges of their gainful trade;