The World Dictates

The World dictates my life from day to day,

It holds my purse, and cuts my pleasures down,

If I would ride, it tells me I must walk,

It counts my concerts when I live in Town.

Yet when I see yon lovely hill this morning,

All white and sepia with its tree and snow-

Who’ll think I’d be a wiser, better man

To sit in cushions at a gilded show?

So let the World dictate my daily life,

Let beauty last till Summer brings me more-

Where lovers, paired together, laugh and play,

As they go wobbling sideways past my door.