The Lord of the
Castle of Indolence
BY JAMES THOMSON
I NOR did we lack our own right royal
king,
The glory of our peaceful realm
and race.
By no long years of restless travailing,
By no fierce wars or intrigues bland
and base,
Did he attain his superlofty place;
But one fair day he lounging to the throne
Reclined thereon with such possessing
grace
That all could see it was in sooth his own,
That it for him was fit and he for it alone.
II.
He there reclined as lilies on a
river,
All cool in sunfire, float in buoyant
rest;
He stirred as flowers that in the sweet south quiver;
He moved as swans move on a lake’s
calm breast,
Or clouds slow gliding in the golden
west;
He thought as birds may think when ’mid the trees
Their joy showers music o’er
the brood-filled nest;
He swayed us all with ever placid ease
As sways the throned moon her world-wide wandering seas.
III.
Look, as within some fair and princely
hall
The marble statue of a god may rest,
Admired in silent reverence by all;
Soothing the weary brain and anguished
breast,
By life’s sore burthens all-too-much
oppressed,
With visions of tranquillity supreme;
So, self-sufficing, grand and bland
and blest,
He dwelt enthroned, and whoso gazed did seem
Endowed with death-calm life in long unwistful dream.
IV.
While others fumed and schemed and
toiled in vain
To mould the world according to
their mood,
He did by might of perfect faith refrain
From any part in such disturbance
rude.
The world, he said, indeed is very
good,
Its Maker surely wiser far than we;
Feed soul and flesh upon its bounteous
food,
Nor fret because of ill; All-good is He,
And worketh not in years but in Eternity.
V.
How men will strain to row against
the tide,
Which yet must sweep them down in
its career!
Or if some win their way and crown their pride,
What do they win? the desert wild
and drear,
The savage rocks, the icy wastes
austere,
Wherefrom the river’s turbid rills downflow
But he upon the waters broad and
clear,
In harmony with all the winds that blow,
’Mid cities, fields and farms, went drifting to and
fro.
VI.
The king with constant heed must
rule his realm,
The soldier faint and starve in
marches long,
The sailor guide with sleepless care his helm,
The poet from sick languors soar
in song:
But he alone amidst the troubled
throng
In restful ease diffused beneficence;
Most like a mid-year noontide rich
and strong,
That fills the earth with fruitful life intense,
And yet doth trance it all in sweetest indolence.
VII.
When summer reigns the joyous leaves
and flowers
Steal imperceptibly upon the tree;
So stole upon him all his bounteous hours,
So passive to their influence seemed
he,
So clothed they him with joy and
majesty;
Basking in ripest summer all his time,
We blessed his shade and sang him
songs of glee;
The dew and sunbeams fed his perfect prime,
And rooted broad and deep he broadly towered sublime.
VIII.
Thus could he laugh those great
and generous laughs
Which made us love ourselves, the
world, and him;
And while they rang we felt as one who quaffs
Some potent wine-cup dowered to
the brim,
And straightway all things seem
to reel and swim,—
Suns, moons, earth, stars sweep through the vast profound,
Wrapt in a golden mist-light warm
and dim,
Rolled in a volume of triumphant sound;
So in that laughter’s joy the whole world carolled
round.
IX.
The sea, the sky, wood, mountain,
stream and plain,
Our whole fair world did serve him
and adorn,
Most like some casual robe which he might deign
To use when kinglier vesture was
not worn.
Was all its being by his soul upborne,
That it should render homage so complete?
The day and night, the even and
the morn,
Seemed ever circling grateful round his feet,
“With Thee, through Thee we live this rich life pure
and sweet!”
X.
For while he loved our broad world
beautiful,
His placid wisdom penetrated it,
And found the lovely words but poor and dull
Beside the secret splendours they
transmit,
The Heavenly things in earthly symbols
writ:
He knew the blood-red sweetness of the vine,
Yet did not therefore at the revel
sit;
But straining out the very wine of wine,
Lived calm and pure and glad in drunkenness divine.
XI.
Without an effort the imperial sun
With ever ample life of light doth
feed
The spheres revolving round it every one:
So all his heart and soul and thought
and deed
Flowed freely forth for every brother’s
need;
He knew no difference between good and ill,
But as the sun doth nourish flower
and weed
With self-same bounty, he too ever still
Lived blessing all alike with equal loving will.
XII.
The all-bestowing sun is clothed
with splendour,
The all-supporting sun doth reign
supreme;
So must eternal justice ever render
Each unsought payment to its last
extreme:
Thus he most rich in others’
joy did seem,
And reigned by servitude all-effortless;
For heaven and earth must vanish
like a dream
Ere such a soul divine can know distress,
Whom all the laws of Life conspire to love and bless.
1859
The James Thomson
Poetry Works
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