HERE! sweep these foolish leaves away, <br />I will not crush my brains to-day! <br />Look! are the southern curtains drawn? <br />Fetch me a fan, and so begone! <br /> <br />Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf <br />Brought from a parching coral-reef <br />Its breath is heated;--I would swing <br />The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing. <br /> <br />I hate these roses' feverish blood! <br />Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, <br />A long-stemmed lily from the lake, <br />Cold as a coiling water-snake. <br /> <br />Rain me sweet odors on the air, <br />And wheel me up my Indian chair, <br />And spread some book not overwise <br />Flat out before my sleepy eyes. <br /> <br />Who knows it not,--this dead recoil <br />Of weary fibres stretched with toil,-- <br />The pulse that flutters faint and low <br />When Summer's seething breezes blow! <br /> <br />O Nature! bare thy loving breast, <br />And give thy child one hour of rest,-- <br />One little hour to lie unseen <br />Beneath thy scarf of leafy green! <br /> <br />So, curtained by a singing pine, <br />Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, <br />Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay <br />In sweeter music dies away.<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/midsummer-5/
