Peace with a book beneath this green-glad tree;
And in the flowery gully at my feet
Deaf stones too dumb for summer's melody
And the long wind's compassionate, slow beat.
Rest with a book -- your book all fire and dew,
Wrought of the brown old earths eternal youth;
Light, song, and star-dream -- all the soul of you,
Guarding herein the treasury of Truth.
Sleep with a book. A dead leaf falls on me,
So Nature yields her labor to the times.
But till the quiet of eternity
Love's happy lips shall kiss to your green rhymes.
First published in The Bulletin, 8 April 1920
