I

Happy the man who ploughs All day his native croft; He looks to heaven and knows, Smiling, the lark aloft.

Happy the man whose toil Leads on laborious hills; The rock beneath the soil The measure of his ills.

Happiest, who can go forth Thro’ every age and clime, His home the whole of earth, His heritage all time.

In vasty Wilds and with No crimson petals pranckt The shallow briars breathe And bloom and die unthankt.

And we the useless Briar, And round us Desert spread The red Sun rolls his fire And smites the Desert dead;

Death, Silence, and the Star With scornful nostrils curl’d; And half-forgotten, far, The movements of the world.