Explore "Sweet Hours" by Carmen Sylva on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
And did they say that rest was not so sweet, / Old age a sadness, no repose at all? / Then have they quite forgotten. They remember / No more the heartbreak of their early youth, / The battle fought for life, the angry clouds / That hid the sun, till he would shine no more, / The anguish of their nights, that made their bed / A furnace and a rack. They say: 'Twas but / A nightmare! And they smile, and yet that smile / Is sadder than a frown, much sadder than / A tear, as it is hopeless. For a tear / Has a bright spot, wherein the sun may sparkle.
That smile is sunless, be it e'er so sweet.