Explore "Unavailing" by Gilbert Parker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Never," you said, "never this side the grave, / And what shall come hereafter, who may know?
Whether we e'en shall guess the way we go, / Passing beneath Death's mystic architrave
Silence or song, dumb sleep or cheerful hours?"
O lady, you have questioned, answer too.
You -- you to die -- silence and gloom for you: / Dead song, dead lights, dead graces, and dead flowers?
It is not so: the foolish trivial end, / The inconsequent paltry Nothing -- gone -- gone all; / The genius of the ageless Something spend
Itself within this little earthly wall: / The commonplace conception, that we reap / Reward of drudge and ploughman -- idle sleep!