OH, blessed ease! no more of heaven I ask: The overseer is gone -- that vandal elf -- And hemp, unpick'd, may go and hang itself, While I, untask'd, except with Cowper's Task, In blessed literary leisure bask, And lose the workhouse, saving in the works Of Goldsmiths, Johnsons, Sheridans, and Burkes; Eat prose and drink of the Castalian flask; The themes of Locke, the anecdotes of Spence, The humorous of Gay, the Grave of Blair -- Unlearned toil, unletter'd labours hence! But, hark! I hear the master on the stair And Thomson's Castle, that of Indolence, Must be to me a castle in the air. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FUTURE LIFE by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT A SPIRIT PASSED BEFORE ME by GEORGE GORDON BYRON MURMURINGS IN A FIELD HOSPITAL by CARL SANDBURG SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAY-BREAK by WALT WHITMAN THE PRELUDE: BOOK 1. CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH SHE PASSED THIS WAY by ANNA M. ACKERMANN FOOTLIGHT MOTIFS: 4. NATALIE ALT by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |