Stupefy my heart to every day's monotony,
           Seal up my eyes, I would not look so far,
          Chasten my steps to peaceful regularity,
           Bow down my head lest I behold a star.

          Fill my days with work, a thousand calm necessities
           Leaving no moment to consecrate to hope,
          Girdle my thoughts within the dull circumferences
           Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's scope.

          Give me dreamless sleep, and loose night's power over me,
           Shut my ears to sounds only tumultuous then,
          Bid Fancy slumber, and steal away its potency,
           Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.

          Let each day pass, well ordered in its usefulness,
           Unlit by sunshine, unscarred by storm;
          Dower me with strength and curb all foolish eagerness —
           The law exacts obedience.  Instruct, I will conform.

          High up above the open, welcoming door
          It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.
          Once, long ago, it was a waving tree
          And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves
          Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.
          The winter snows had bent its branches down,
          The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,
          Summer had run like fire through its veins,
          While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,
          And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.
          Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among
          Its branches, breaking here and there a limb;
          But every now and then broad sunlit days
          Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves.
          Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us
          It does not speak of mossy forest ways,
          Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;
          But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea!
          An artist once, with patient, careful knife,
          Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.
          Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back
          By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue
          And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.