Restless Time, who ne’er abidest
Driver, who life’s chariot guides!
O’er dark hills and vales that smile ‘
Let me, let me breathe awhile :
Whither dost thou hasten ? say ! –
Driver, but an instant stay.
What a viewless distance thou,
Still untired, hast travelled now!
Never tarrying, – rest unheeding,-
Over thorns and roses speeding,-
Through lone places unforeseen,-
Cliff and vast abyss between !
Five-and-twenty years thou ‘st passed,
Thundering on unchecked and fast,
Ami, though tempests burst around,
Stall nor slay thy coursers found :
I am dizzy, faint, oppressed,-
Driver ! for one moment rest.
Swifter than the lightning flies,
All things vanish from my eyes ;
All that rose so brightly o’er me,
Like pale mist-wreaths, fade before me;
Every spot my glance can find
Thy impatience leaves behind.
Yesterday thy wild steeds flew
O>r ? spot where roses grew;
These I sought to gather blindly,
But thou hurriedst on unkindly:
Fairest buds I trampled, lorn,
And but grasped the naked thorn.
Driver ‘ turn thee quickly back
On the selfsame beaten track :
I, of late, so much neglected,
Lost, forgot, contemned, rejected.
That I still each scene would trace: –
Slacken thy bewildering pace !
Dost thou thus impetuous drive,
That thou sooner may’st arrive
Safe within the hallowed fences
Where delight – where rest commences?
Where, then, dost thou respite crave?
All make answer, ” At the grave.”
There, alas ! and only there,
Through the storms that rend the air,
Doth the rugged pathway bend :
There all pains and sorrows end;
There repose’s goal is won : –
Driver ! ride, in God’s name, on !
(Hendrik Tollens)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Time Poems, Name Poems, Goals Poems, Rejection PoemsBased on Keywords: commences, five-and-twenty, contemned, mist-wreaths, abidest