Rest [poem by Henry Kendall]

[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Leaves from Australian Forests (1869).]

X.

Rest.

Sometimes we feel so spent for want of rest,
We have no thought beyond. I know to-day,
When tired of bitter lips and dull delay
With faithless words, I cast mine eyes upon
The shadows of a distant mountain-crest,
And said, “That hill must hide within its breast
Some secret glen secluded from the sun.
Oh, mother Nature! would that I could run
Outside to thee, and, like a wearied guest
Half blind with lamps and sick of feasting, lay
An aching head on thee. Then down the streams
The moon might swim; and I should feel her grace,
While soft winds blew the sorrows from my face
So quiet in the fellowship of dreams.”

Source:
Henry Kendall, Leaves from Australian Forests, Melbourne: George Robertson, 1869, page 112