IV
THE IDLER
Fair April, daughter of spring, the pink and white apricot blossoms are like your slender breasts, and your sweet eyes shed soft sunshine over my garden. Ah! what a lovely day lies before me! And how good to stretch my old arms and shake off the stiffness of the night. I have been working hard for the last two weeks to make up for lost time, and we three, my two apprentices and I, have made the shavings fly under our planes, but unfortunately we rather lack customers; there are few to buy, and fewer still to pay for what they order; now purses are lean and empty, but red blood still runs in our arms, good soil is in our fields, and we reign over both.
Since early morning the voice of the working city has risen up to Heaven, "Our Father, give us our daily bread," but meanwhile, like sensible folks, we are kneading it ourselves. . . . You can hear the clatter of the millwheel, the wheeze of the forge bellows, and the hammers beating on the an-
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