Classic Poem

What shall we buy for a summer's day?
What is good reading and what is not?
Mabie will tell us—we wait his say;
For Mabie alone can know what's what.
Meanwhile the world is as still as death;
Mute inquiry is in men's looks;
Everybody is holding his breath—
Mabie is reading the summer books.

The suns are at pause in the cosmic race;
The mills of the gods have ceased to grind;
The only sound that is heard in space
Is the rhythmic clicking of Mabie's mind.
Elsewhere silence, or near or far—
Chattering Pleiads or babbling brooks;
For the whisper has passed from star to star:
“Mabie is reading the summer books.”