O give me speech! companionship I ask
With my own kind: my soul is sick of books,
And longs with passionate longing for the looks
Of living men. Thou flat, insipid flask!
Thou dead man's soul! Thou book! Thou calf-skin mask!
I loathe thee! Lo! abroad the reaping-hooks,
From the high hill-brow to the confluent brooks,
Are cireling in the harvest: Happy task!
Thine, happy peasant! is the healthful breeze,
The beams that call the red blood to the cheek,
The hunger which the plainest meals appease,
And thine, O bliss! companions that can speak:
To me—close chambers, where at noon I freeze,
And musty tomes from dumb-day'd week to week.