Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Rest

By John Sullivan Dwight (1813–1893)

SWEET is the pleasure

Itself cannot spoil!

Is not true leisure

One with true toil?

Thou that wouldst taste it,

Still do thy best;

Use it, not waste it—

Else ’tis no rest.

Wouldst behold beauty

Near thee? all round?

Only hath duty

Such a sight found.

Rest is not quitting

The busy career;

Rest is the fitting

Of self to its sphere.

’Tis the brook’s motion,

Clear without strife,

Fleeing to ocean

After its life.

Deeper devotion

Nowhere hath knelt;

Fuller emotion

Heart never felt.

’Tis loving and serving

The highest and best;

’Tis onwards! unswerving—

And that is true rest.