Poem by Christopher Pearse Cranch

Sonnet 54. Idle Hours

YE idle hours of summer, not in vain,
To one by Nature's beauty fed, ye pass —
Though sending through the mental camera glass
No philosophic lesson to the brain,
But only pictures fair of shaded lane,
Of dappled cows knee-deep in meadow grass;
Bright hill-tops with their sloping forest mass,
Or barn-roofs glimmering gray across the plain.
Earth, air, and water, and the sacred skies
Have something still to tell, not less, I ween,
Than famous books the learned sages prize,
Weighted with thought abstract and logic keen,
Where Concord pores with metaphysic eyes
O'er vasty deeps of the unknown and unseen.

1. Sonnet 8. You were not born to hide such gifts as yours
2. Sonnet 29. Life and Death. 1.
3. Sonnet 12. The Ocean Steamer
4. Sonnet 18. The Fireside
5. Prince Yousuf and the Alcayde

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