Whoever has from toil and stress

Put into ports of idleness,

And watched the gleaming thistledown

Wheel in the soft air lazily blown;

Or leaning on the shady rail,

Beneath the poplars, silver pale,

Eyed in the shallow amber pools

The black perch voyaging in schools;

Or heard the fisherman outpour

His strange and questionable lore,

While the cream-blossomed basswood-trees

Boomed like an organ with the bees;

Or by blind fancy held aloof

Has startled with prosaic hoof,

Beneath the willows in the shade,

The wooing of a pretty maid;

And traced the sharp or genial air

Of human nature everywhere:

Might find perchance the wandered fire,

Around St. Joseph’s sparkling spire;

And wearied with the fume and strife,

The complex joys and ills of life,

Might for an hour his worry staunch,

In pleasant Viger by the Blanche.