On a Lazy Afternoon - Poem

A Summer Afternoon

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,


With labored respiration, moves the wheat


From distant reaches, till the golden seas


Break in crisp whispers at my feet.



My book, neglected of an idle mind,


Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;


Or lightly opened by a critic wind,


Affrightedly reviews itself again.



Off through the haze that dances in the shine


The warm sun showers in the open glade,


The forest lies, a silhouette design


Dimmed through and through with shade.






A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie


At anchor from all storms of mental strain;


With absent vision, gazing at the sky,


"Like one that hears it rain."






The Katydid, so boisterous last night,


Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise,


Beneath a wheat-blade, has forgotten quite


If "Katy DID or DIDN'T" make a noise.






The twitter, sometimes, of a wayward bird


That checks the song abruptly at the sound,


And mildly, chiding echoes that have stirred,


Sink into silence, all the more profound.






And drowsily I hear the plaintive strain


Of some poor dove . . . Why, I can scarcely keep


My heavy eyelids--there it is again--


"Coo-coo!"--I mustn't--"Coo-coo!"--fall asleep!






BY:  James Whitcomb Riley