Unrest
A weary rider, glancing down an aisle
Of blossom-dappled orchard, spied outstretched
All in the sweet and slumbrous noonday light.
A youth reposing on the cool green grass
Under a clustered bough, and he could hear
The drowsy murmur of enamored bees
About the dainty blossoms cream and pink.
The rider thought “What perfect rest!” and passed
Along the glowing road. The youth, a poet,
Watching the loosened petals drifting down
Silently all about him on the grass,
Thus mused, in somewhat of unhappy mood:
“Unrest—unrest! From wintry solstice come,
The sun that coaxed these blossoms to the boughs
Will hasten them to fruit without delay;
The fruit will ripen hour by hour, will fall,
Be gathered; autumn winds will roughly strip
These branches of their foliage, and the sun
In time will wheel again to other climes;
The ichor of these trees will ebb; this grass
Change emerald for a sad and russet hue;
Keen blasts will whistle, and the barren twigs
Will whiten with a chill and muffling snow;
And then in time the spring will breathe again
Upon the scene, and summer will return.
Unrest—unrest! There's not for anything,
From sun and moon and stars to floating moths,
Perfect repose. Unceasing as the tides
Of ocean, all things move unto a law
That knows no fraction of a moment's rest.
That filmy cloud that canopies with pearl
These burgeoned sprays will in due time descend
Upon them in swift showers, whose drops will be
Redrawn invisibly into the blue
To form a pearly cloud again, again
To be dashed down in showers, or to be fused
By lightning in a fierce and riving bolt.
Hidden among those blossoms is a nest
Wherefrom wind-cradled fledglings soon will peep
Upon a wondrous wide and azure world.
A little later and their glinting wings
Will skim tempestuous seas in migrant flight
For the antipodes. Wars rage, men fall
By thousands and, intrenched in bloody soil,
Are soon forgot; new generations wage
Life's endless strife; and for their hungry tongues
The cattle and the sheep that gently browse
On sunny hills and meadows must be slain.
The secret of this mystery has not been
And may not be revealed. We only know
That he who seeks for rest, for quittance from
The inexorable universal law
Is buffeted into the stream again
And hurried onward. Could the rest be found
For which man sighs, he soon would cry to heaven
For respite from its gloom.”
The poet wrote
His thoughts in song, adding prophetic view
Of life beyond the grave—the perfect rest
Of energy subservient to God's will.
That song found lodgment in the mind of one
Who had blasphemed the maker of the heavens
And earth for that there is no rest for man;
And he, no longer recreant, found repose
In yielding to the universal law.
Of blossom-dappled orchard, spied outstretched
All in the sweet and slumbrous noonday light.
A youth reposing on the cool green grass
Under a clustered bough, and he could hear
The drowsy murmur of enamored bees
About the dainty blossoms cream and pink.
The rider thought “What perfect rest!” and passed
Along the glowing road. The youth, a poet,
Watching the loosened petals drifting down
Silently all about him on the grass,
Thus mused, in somewhat of unhappy mood:
“Unrest—unrest! From wintry solstice come,
The sun that coaxed these blossoms to the boughs
Will hasten them to fruit without delay;
The fruit will ripen hour by hour, will fall,
Be gathered; autumn winds will roughly strip
These branches of their foliage, and the sun
In time will wheel again to other climes;
The ichor of these trees will ebb; this grass
Change emerald for a sad and russet hue;
Keen blasts will whistle, and the barren twigs
Will whiten with a chill and muffling snow;
And then in time the spring will breathe again
Upon the scene, and summer will return.
Unrest—unrest! There's not for anything,
From sun and moon and stars to floating moths,
Perfect repose. Unceasing as the tides
Of ocean, all things move unto a law
That knows no fraction of a moment's rest.
That filmy cloud that canopies with pearl
These burgeoned sprays will in due time descend
Upon them in swift showers, whose drops will be
Redrawn invisibly into the blue
To form a pearly cloud again, again
To be dashed down in showers, or to be fused
By lightning in a fierce and riving bolt.
Hidden among those blossoms is a nest
Wherefrom wind-cradled fledglings soon will peep
Upon a wondrous wide and azure world.
A little later and their glinting wings
Will skim tempestuous seas in migrant flight
For the antipodes. Wars rage, men fall
By thousands and, intrenched in bloody soil,
Are soon forgot; new generations wage
Life's endless strife; and for their hungry tongues
The cattle and the sheep that gently browse
On sunny hills and meadows must be slain.
The secret of this mystery has not been
And may not be revealed. We only know
That he who seeks for rest, for quittance from
The inexorable universal law
Is buffeted into the stream again
And hurried onward. Could the rest be found
For which man sighs, he soon would cry to heaven
For respite from its gloom.”
The poet wrote
His thoughts in song, adding prophetic view
Of life beyond the grave—the perfect rest
Of energy subservient to God's will.
That song found lodgment in the mind of one
Who had blasphemed the maker of the heavens
And earth for that there is no rest for man;
And he, no longer recreant, found repose
In yielding to the universal law.
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