Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FALLOW by CHARLES MACKAY

First Line: ALONE, ALONE, LET ME WANDER ALONE
Last Line: FALLOW, FALLOW, AND REPOSING!
Subject(s): POETRY & POETS; SOLITUDE; LONELINESS;
ALONE, alone, let me wander alone!
There's an odor of hay o'er the woodlands blown
There's a humming of bees beneath the lime,
And the deep blue heaven of a Southern clime
Is not more beautifully bright
Than this English sky with its islets white,
And its alp-like clouds, so snowy fair! --
The birch-leaves dangle in balmy air;
And the elms and oaks scarce seem to know
When the whispering breezes come or go;
But the bonnie sweet-briar, she knows well;
For she has kissed them -- and they tell!
And bear to all the West and South
The pleasant odors of her mouth.
Let me alone to my idle pleasure;
What do I care for toil or treasure?
To-morrow I'll work, if work you crave,
Like a king, a statesman, or a slave;
But not to-day, no! nor to-morrow,
If from my drowsy ease I borrow
No health and strength to bear my boat
Through the great life-ocean where we float.

Under the leaves, amid the grass,
Lazily the day shall pass,
Yet not be wasted. Must I ever
Climb up the hill-tops of Endeavor?
I hate you all, ye musty books!
Ye know not how the morning looks; --
Ye smell of studies long and keen; --
I'll change the white leaves for the green!
My Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope,
I'll leave them for the grassy slope,
Where other singers, sweet as they,
Chant hymn, and song, and roundelay.
What do I care for Kant or Hegel,
For Leibnitz, Newton, Locke, or Schlegel?
Did they exhaust philosophy?
I'll find it in the earth or sky,
In woodbine wreaths, in ears of corn,
Or flickering shadows of the morn;
And if I gather nothing new,
At least I'll keep my spirits true
And bathe my heart in honey dew.

This day I'll neither think nor read
Of great Crimean toil or deed.
To-morrow, as in days agone,
I'll pray for peace by valor won,
For speedy triumph of the right,
And Earth's repose in Love's own light.
To-day I need a truce myself
From books and men, from care and pelf,
And I will have it in cool lanes,
O'erarching like cathedral fanes,
With clm and beech of sturdy girth;
Or on the bosom of green earth
Amid the daisies; -- dreaming, dozing,
Fallow, fallow, and reposing!



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