Explore "Respite" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The mighty conflict, which we call existence, / Doth wear upon the body and the soul, / Our vital forces wasted in resistance, / So much there is to conquer and control.
The rock which meets the billows with defiance, / Undaunted and unshaken day by day, / In spite of its unyielding self-reliance, / Is by the warfare surely worn away.
And there are depths and heights of strong emotions / That surge at times within the human breast, / More fierce than all the tides of all the oceans / Which sweep on ever in divine unrest.
I sometimes think the rock worn with adventures, / And sad with thoughts of conflicts yet to be, / Must envy the frail reed which no one censures, / When, overcome, 'tis swallowed by the sea.
This life is all resistance and repression. / Dear God, if in that other world unseen, / Not rest we find, but new life and progression, / Grant us a respite in the grave between.