The Grocer’s Dream

If I have but a little time To watch the wild flowers bloom, To tread the grass with my light feet, To listen to the pleasant tune Of the rippling brook, amid the woods, Or read the tale of the stars at night, I shall wish that the hours were ever so enclosed In the fast-fading twilight of day, that I might write.

If I have but the scent of the summer air, The color of the deep blue sky, The sound of the woods’ stillness there, I shall die with the sunset’s blush in my eye.

Yet do I seek to store with thought This glorious, every day, green earth; The essence of joy, the heart of the isles, The endless grace of all that gives birth.

For in this life of storms and tides, A soul can still find quiet dreams, To grasp at beauty’s glorious season, Instead of empty, hollow schemes.

• James Russell Lowell