Rest

Rest! — there is no such thing;
A coward's baseless dream.
Time is a rushing flood,
And thou art in the stream.
Thou mayest fret and weep,
And turn upon thy side:
Remorseless currents hold
Thy being in their tide.
Rest! — Up and be a man;
Look out upon the night;
No star stands still in heaven,
In all thine aching sight
Thy mind, a restless pool,
Where whirling eddies sweep
Hope's dreams and fancies round,
For ever, in its deep;
Thy frame, a battle-field,
Where every pulse and breath
Bring tidings from the ground,
Where life is meeting death.
Rest! — chafe no more in vain;
On, lest thy peers go by;
Thou wouldst not if thou couldst,
Evade thy destiny.
Insatiate nature craves
Some fuel for its fire,
Food for the appetite
Of unappeased desire.
Think what a helpless clog
These limbs of thine would be,
If motion never stirred
Their passive lethargy.
Think what a weary world,
Were all life's duties done,
And knowledge but a goal,
That was already won;
If this unquiet thought
Had roamed its region through,
And paused beyond the bourne,
With nothing else to do
Around thee and above,
Within thee and apart,
Are countless goads and spurs
To rouse thy flagging heart
Ambition, fear and love,
Pride, envy, discontents,
Those ministers of change,
Life's countless stimulants.
Ferment for evermore,
Within this passive form,
Unwearying as the wave,
That rolls in calm and storm.
Resistance, — pregnant law,
That all thy life attends,
And, in a hostile guise,
Leads action to its ends; ....
In thought's thin atmosphere,
Unhood thy fluttering soul;
Resistance bears it up,
And speeds it to its goal.
As thou hast seen a torch
Burn with a clearer glow,
When flung far up aloft,
Where fresher breezes blow;
So does my spirit burn,
Brighter, and yet more bright,
As higher currents meet,
And fan it in its flight.
Then onward in thy course;
When doubt obscures the way,
Trim better lamps, to light
Thy spirit to its day
Want, sickness, danger, fear,
Are ever at thy hand,
To bring new forces out,
And train them to command.
Thou art not all a man,
Till thou hast known them all,
Till thou hast stood and faced
Whatever may appal.
Cut bono? — faithless words;
It is enough for thee,
To know that toil expands
Thy weak capacity
Live one step further on,
And know that thou art, here,
A chrysalis, whose wings
Grow for another sphere;
That knowledge, being, power,
Are onward, infinite,
And every effort, now,
A progress in thy flight;
And see if thou, but one
Of all this race of men,
Can'st look around and ask
That faithless question then.
No! onward, — ever on;
Time's earnest moments roll;
Leave rest to sickly dreams,
Cui bono? to the fool.
Know this, for thee, the whole,
If thou canst comprehend;
Toil and Development
Are way, reward, and end.