Worn-out and useless, lone, he stands and dreams,
Day after day, the long sweet summer through:
The last turf-ridge upturned, what is to do
Save watch the crow-hordes, or a hawk that screams
High o'er his master's dooryard, till it seems
The world was made a place for dreaming in?
Around him, daisy-wheels ecstatic spin,
And cattle splash, knee-deep, through cooling streams;
But he, inert, thought-wrapt, oblivious, drifts,
Dream-drawn, a-browse, towards other fields than these,
Where first he felt the Spring's quick kiss, and seas
Of green about him swam. . . . His bent head lifts …
Like some sweet message caught from far-off lands,
He hears his mother whinny, where he stands!