The Lord of the Castle of Indolence
I
NOR did we lack our own right royal king,
The glory of our peaceful realm and race.
By no long years of restless travailing,
By no fierce wars or intrigues bland and base,
Did he attain his superlofty place;
But one fair day he lounging to the throne
Reclined thereon with such possessing grace
That all could see it was in sooth his own,
That it for him was fit and he for it alone.
II.
He there reclined as lilies on a river,
All cool in sunfire, float in buoyant rest;
He stirred as flowers that in the sweet south quiver;
He moved as swans move on a lake’s calm breast,
Or clouds slow gliding in the golden west;
He thought as birds may think when ’mid the trees
Their joy showers music o’er the brood-filled nest;
He swayed us all with ever placid ease
As sways the throned moon her world-wide wandering seas.
III.
Look, as within some fair and princely hall
The marble statue of a god may rest,
Admired in silent reverence by all;
Soothing the weary brain and anguished breast,
By life’s sore burthens all-too-much oppressed,
With visions of tranquillity supreme;
So, self-sufficing, grand and bland and blest,
He dwelt enthroned, and whoso gazed did seem
Endowed with death-calm life in long unwistful dream.
IV.
While others fumed and schemed and toiled in vain
To mould the world according to their mood,
He did by might of perfect faith refrain
From any part in such disturbance rude.
The world, he said, indeed is very good,
Its Maker surely wiser far than we;
Feed soul and flesh upon its bounteous food,
Nor fret because of ill; All-good is He,
And worketh not in years but in Eternity.
V.
How men will strain to row against the tide,
Which yet must sweep them down in its career!
Or if some win their way and crown their pride,
What do they win? the desert wild and drear,
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poem by James Thomson
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