If rest is sweet at shut of day
For tired hands and tired feet,
How sweet at last to rest for aye,
If rest is sweet!
We work or work not through the heat:
Death bids us soon our labours lay
In lands where night and twilight meet.
When the last dawns are fallen on grey
And all life's toils and ease complete,
They know who work, not they who play,
If rest is sweet.
Arthur Symons.
MORS ET VITA.
We know not yet what life shall be,
What shore beyond earth's shore be set;
What grief awaits us, or what glee,
We know not yet.
Still, somewhere in sweet converse met,
Old friends, we say, beyond death's sea
Shall meet and greet us, nor forget
Those days of yore, those years when we
Were loved and true,-but will death let
Our eyes the longed-for vision see?
We know not yet.
Samuel Waddington.