When Heavy On My Tired Mind The World, And Worldly Things, Do Weigh, And Some Sweet Solace I Would Find, Into The Sky I Love To Stray, And, All Alone, To Wander Round In Lone Seclusion From The Ground. Ah! Then What Solitude Is Mine - From Grovelling Mankind Aloof! Their Road Is But A Thin-Drawn Line: Their Busy House A Scarce-Seen Roof. That Little Stain Of Red And Brown They Boast About! - It Is Their Town! How Small Their Petty Quarrels Seem! Poor, Crawling Multitudes Below; Which, Like The Ants, In Feverish Stream From Place To Place Move To And Fro! Like Ants They Work: Like Ants They Fight, Assuming Blindly They Are Right. Soon Their Existence I Forget, In Joy That On These Flashing Wings I Cleave The Skies - O! Let Them Fret - Now Know I Why The Skylark Sings Untrammelled In The Boundless Air - For Mine It Is His Bliss To Share! Now Do I Mount A Billowy Cloud, Now Do I Sail Low O'Er A Hill, And With A Seagull'S Skill Endowed Circle, And Wheel, And Drop At Will - Above The Villages Asleep, Above The Valleys, Shadowed Deep, Above The Water-Meadows Green Whose Streams, Which Intermingled Flow, Like Silver Lattice-Work Are Seen A-Gleam Upon The Plain Below - Above The Woods, Whose Naked Trees Move New-Born Buds Upon The Breeze. And Far Away Above The Haze I See White Mountain-Summits Rise, Whose Snow With Sunlight Is Ablaze And Shines Against The Distant Skies. Such Thoughts Those Towering Ranges Bring That I Float On A-Wondering! So Do I Love To Travel On Through Lonely Skies, Myself Alone; For Then The Feverish Fret Is Gone Which On This Earth I Oft Have Known. Kind Is The God Who Lets Me Fly In Sweet Seclusion Through The Sky! France, 1917.