They dub thee idler, smiling sneeringly, <br />And why? because, forsooth, so many moons, <br />Here dwelling voiceless by the voiceful sea, <br />Thou hast not set thy thoughts to paltry tunes <br />In song or sonnet. Them these golden noons <br />Oppress not with their beauty; they could prate, <br />Even while a prophet read the solemn runes <br />On which is hanging some imperial fate. <br />How know they, these good gossips, what to thee <br />The ocean and its wanderers may have brought? <br />How know they, in their busy vacancy, <br />With what far aim thy spirit may be fraught? <br />Or that thou dost not bow thee silently <br />Before some great unutterable thought?<br /><br />Henry Timrod<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-04-2/
