After These Days

Come let us go into a long quietness and rest-

It will be best.

It will be best after these full-blown days,

After these days flushed with receiving and giving,

It will be best to forget the heavy ecstasy of living,

For awhile to be lulled within the crescent of a smile,

To sleep . . . to turn beneath the beauty of a dream,

To let our eyelids fall over the weariness of sight,

To shut out light, and learn again of darkness

And the kind suppliant fingers of the blind.

Come to a country that is soft with color,

Where a green silvers to gray and yellow cools to brown,

Where there are mountains down whose sides shadows

ebb and flow

In languid tides of blue and purple.

Come! Be one with sun and earth, bend knees to these,

Whisper a new cry of worship to the ancient sky,

Whisper a song to the listening air, and find peace there,

Find peace, let our eyelids fall, sleep. . . .

Sleep and dream . . . sleep and rest . . .

That will be best.