Classic Poem

The sun climbs over the indigo hills
And lazily mounts the sky;
So slothful his gait that noon we await
Ere his course is two hours high.
The waveless sea inertly lies
In the hush and quiet of death—
All nature's asleep in slumber deep,
And the breeze is an infant's breath.

O these are the days, the awful days,
When the fiercest spirit quails!
When the keenest zest is fain to rest,
When the strongest effort fails.
When the sluggish mind and the sluggish soul
To the sluggish pulse respond;
When desire is dead, ambition fled,
And we sink in the Slough of Despond!