A jar of cider and my pipe,
In summer, under shady tree;
A book of one that made his mind
Live by its sweet simplicity:
Then must I laugh at kings who sit
In richest chambers, signing scrolls;
And princes cheered in public ways,
And stared at by a thousand fools.
Let me be free to wear my dreams.
Like weeds in some mad maiden's hair.
When she believes the earth has not
Another maid so rich and fair;
And proudly smiles on rich and poor.
The queen of all fair women then:
So I, dressed in my idle dreams,
Will think myself the king of men.
“I do not think altogether the worse of a book for having survived the author a generation or two. I have more confidence in the dead than the living.” — Hazlitt
24 August 2015
In Summer, Under Shady Tree
W. H. Davies, "The Sluggard," Collected Poems (London: Jonathan Cape, 1921), p. 65