Lucy Maud Montgomery

A Day Off

Let us put awhile away 
All the cares of work-a-day, 
For a golden time forget, 
Task and worry, toil and fret, 
Let us take a day to dream 
In the meadow by the stream. 

We may lie in grasses cool 
Fringing a pellucid pool, 
We may learn the gay brook-runes 
Sung on amber afternoons, 
And the keen wind-rhyme that fills 
Mossy hollows of the hills. 

Where the wild-wood whisper stirs 
We may talk with lisping firs, 
We may gather honeyed blooms 
In the dappled forest glooms, 
We may eat of berries red 
O’er the emerald upland spread. 

We may linger as we will 
In the sunset valleys still, 
Till the gypsy shadows creep 
From the starlit land of sleep, 
And the mist of evening gray 
Girdles round our pilgrim way. 

We may bring to work again 
Courage from the tasselled glen, 
Bring a strength unfailing won 
From the paths of cloud and sun, 
And the wholesome zest that springs 
From all happy, growing things.