Toil

The joy of toil is never old,
To sit alone and work among,
Those voluminous works of old,
As if to dig a mine of gold,
Or sing the song the blue bird sang,
As if to swing high and back,
From a sturdy swing of an old tree bark,
And while I swing, my feet do feel,
The softness of the clouds above,
The clouds like cotton or soft candy,
My feet aching to go higher still,
To learn till I breathe my last,
And if I can, keep learning still.

To learn in the silence of my heart,
As if to walk in its chambers red,
And sing the songs of Lord Alfred,
The heart beat giving a steady rhythm,
And on the throbbing fleshy walls,
I write in writing neat and bright,
The words of Wordsworth and his likes.

But on the deepest part of my heart,
The part that decides life and death,
I’ll write in ink indelible,
What in untidy papers Shakespeare wrote,
And may the blessed Saviour see this,
And take pity upon my foolish heart,
And help me to write, to make a start,
A work that my heroes would themselves like.