HASTE NOT, REST NOT
J. W. Goethe
Without haste, without rest!
Bind the motto to thy breast;
Bear it with thee as a spell;
Storm or sunshine, guard it well;
Heed not flowers that round thee bloom
Bear it onward to the tomb.
Haste not! let no thoughtless deed
Mar fore’er the spirit’s speed;
Ponder well and know the right—
Onward then with all thy might;
Haste not! years can ne’er atone
For one reckless action done.
Rest not!—life is sweeping by;
Do and dare before you die;
Something mighty and sublime
Leave behind to conquer time.
Glorious ’tis to live for aye
When these forms have passed away.
Haste not, rest not! calmly wait,
Meekly bear the storms of fate;
Duty be thy polar guide—
Do the right, whate’er betide.
Haste not, rest not! conflicts past,
God shall crown thy work at last.
—Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
DOUBTING CASTLE
Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping; wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds.
Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bade them awake, and asked them whence they were and what they did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims and that they had lost their way. Then said the Giant, “You have this night trespassed on me by trampling in and lying on my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me.”