Brown Study

Deep in a dream I dwell;
deep in a dream-bound dell
darkly I drowse.
Books are my drugs of bliss,
books are the lips I kiss,
the fields I browse.

See, from the laddered shelves
Shakespeare and Swift themselves
speak straightly down;
Bunyan and Blake are born,
minted afresh each morn,
mind-kings to crown.

So in my silent head
shout the gigantic dead
and wisely cry,
While in the world outside
turn time and toilless tide,
and seasons fly.