ORIGINAL POETRY.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 373, 17 February 1880, Page 2

ORIGINAL POETRY.

BEST. By D. M. Yeats. Rest, rest, oh rest! : tis our common cry For what on earth cannot come ;••■■■ The prayer -of the 'heart to God on high, Still strongest when voice is dumb. The yearning cry-of the soul in pain For what it has never known, Of Life's sftdsong the most'pd reffaiif, Sent upwards in soundless lone. - ' • - ■ Rest from the sorrow that eats the heart; * The snake with its ve'nomed tooth, The sorrow for love-links rent apart — Oh 1 bitter untruth of truth. For the wreck of hopes once, once our all, That drifts upon memory's tide, That cannot sink in its rise or fall, But on its wan waves must ride. .- T '•'? :'M r O *,'■; Rest from the pain left by days mis-spent, Of our talents cast away.; > Of failure .through weak, ..though good " intent, That passes as shore-spqnt spray; \ : h Of hasty words that so -sharp 1 have' stung ; Of bitter words we've said ; Of the/times the. hearts fond-loved we've wrung, ' •,-.■ That are now—Ah ! with the dead. - Rest, rest from this wheel-like round of life. And this dull deadweight of care, From this wavering, doubting spirit strife, Which bo oft hides in despair. From the treading out the grapes of sin With our feet stained rejd with blood ; From day to day sorrow's vat within, All splashed with the crimson, flood.; It cannot come, and we need not call, But 'twill fold us in the grave, When the battered wreck, of our life, our all ■•■• ' Has been sunk beneath Time's wave. How blessed should that promise be In the weary human breast— " Come ye, heavy laden, and all ye Who labour, for I give rest. '