Yesterday morning, my boy, I refreshed myself by a lounge across Long Bridge to the fields about Arlington Heights, where blooming Nature still has verdant spots untrampled by the iron heel of strategic war.
How pleasant is it, my boy, to escape occasionally from the society of Congressmen and brigadiers, and take a lazy sprawl in the fragrant fields. It is the philosopher's way of enjoying Summer's
DOLCE FAR NIENTE.
I.
Still as a fly in amber, hangs the world
In a transparent sphere of golden hours,
With not enough of life in all the air
To stir the shadows or to move the flowers;
And in the halo broods the angel Sleep,
Wooed from the bosom of the midnight deep
By her sweet sister Silence, wed to Noon.
II.
Held in a soft suspense of summer light,
The generous fields with all their bloom of wealth
Bask in a dream of Plenty for the years,
And breathe the languor of untroubled Health.
Without a ripple stands the yellow wheat,
Like the Broad Seal of God upon the sheet
Where Labor's signature appeareth soon.
III.
As printed staves of thankful Nature's hymn,
The fence of rails a soothing grace devotes,
With clinging vines for bass and treble cleffs
And wrens and robins here and there for notes;
Spread out in bars, at equal distance met,
As though the whole bright summer scene were set
To the unuttered melody of Rest!