The idle wind blows all the day. I wish it blew my care away. The idle wind blows all day long And weaves a burden to my song Upon the melancholy flight

I might forget ambition and the hu… I might forget the passion to esca… I might forget the curious dreams… My fancy day and night. I might f… If I could let the pen alone and…

I’ve had a few diseases, And trifled with despair, Tried failure which displeases, And coquetted with care. But through the stormy weather

O Robert Lee, you paladin, I wonder how my words would strike… I know the portrait might have bee… In many, many ways more like you. But you would not have had me plan

Of old our father’s God was real, Something they almost saw, Which kept them to a stern ideal And scourged them into awe. They walked the narrow path of rig…

I might have been a worker, but I… I tell my idle stories in a philos… In a fuzzy, spiny mantle of remote… I lie and watch with half-shut eye… And they bustle and they rustle wi…

I like to read confessions As lengthy as Rousseau’s, With all their slow processions Of innumerable woes. I revel in Cellini,

You may think my life is quiet. I find it full of change, An ever-varied diet, As piquant as ’tis strange. Wild thoughts are always flying,

Just to utter a word, That is all I desire; That may still be heard, When I expire; That still may glow,

Others may seem gay and certain, Steering one unbroken line. But lift up the heart’s dim curtai… It might prove as frail as mine. Full of shift and light vagary,

Sing a little, play a little, Laugh a little; for Life is so extremely brittle, Who would think of more? Every long-laid project shatters,

I had visited her often, Long had sought, with vain endeavo… Her obdurate heart to soften; But she answered, ‘never, never.’ Then it softened and ran widely,

Hist! Zop! The world is all awry. Think that you can mend it? Take a turn and try. Virtue gets a fall or two,

Sleep and turn and sleep again, Spite of the morning birds. I am weary of strife with men, Weary of fruitless words. Once I traveled in blossomed ways…

You think my songs are strange. I think they are myself. I let my fancy range’€” The divagating elf. Don’t say my songs are common.