1Walking abroad once in a summer’s day,
2And (as I well remember) ’twas in May,
3Being tired with fancies, and my panting breast
4Being full of trouble, I looked where I might rest.
5Then down I threw myself upon the grass;
6Some solitary hours I thought to pass.
7Leaning my head against a sycamore,
8My heavy eyes upon the ground did pore.
9Musing and looking on my Mother, Earth
, 10To which I must
, from whence I drew my breath; 11Then did I think how I to dust
must turn, 12And lie forgotten, in my silent urn,
13Where I should lose the comfortable
sight 14Of my dear friends, and all discovering light.
15As I these thoughts within my mind revolved,
16Sighs fill my heart, till they in tears dissolved.
17Then, clearing of mine eyes, I looked about
— 18What I could see, to put these sorrows out
19Of my sad heart?—where instantly I spied
20A hill of pismires
, who their labor plied. 21Some luggered
up and down their flatious
issue
, 22And some with glittering wings that shone like tissue
, 23The rest their wheat, and other nibbled grain
24Did lay in store, from winter’s storms and rain.
25And only those with shining wings did play,
26Seeming to keep perpetual holiday
. 27Then instantly my busy mind was hurled,
28Thinking they were an emblem of the world.
29For all which from this earth do draw their breath
30Still moil
and labor in this dunghill earth
. 31From kings, who earth’s elixir
seem to have, 32Unto the naked sunburned female slave,
33Who with her sweaty, knotty locks unbound,
34About her giddy
mill doth trot around
. 35For who is free until his soul doth spring
36From’s
earthly clog
and joyfully takes wing? 37Then from that distance we perceive (most plain)
38That all our moiling here is but in vain.
39For earthly glory is our sight’s delusion,
40It proving but a chaos
of confusion. 41O then as I in heaven have placed my love,
42So I’m ambitious of those joys above.
43Grant me the wings of some unspotted dove
, 44To ease the troubles of my throbbing breast,
45That I may fly to my eternal rest.