Oh! lonely, gentle, unobtrusive mule!

Thou standest idly 'gainst the azure sky,

And sweetly, sadly singeth like a hired man.

Who taught thee thus to warble

In the noontide heat and wrestle with

Thy deep, corroding grief and joyless woe?

Who taught thy simple heart

Its pent-up, wildly-warring waste

Of wanton woe to carol forth upon

The silent air?