Daniel Decatur Emmett

Here you will find the Poem Eternal Rest of poet Daniel Decatur Emmett

Eternal Rest

When the impatient spirit leaves behind 
The clogging hours and makes no dear delay 
To drop this Nessus-shirt of night and day, 
To cast the flesh that bound and could not bind 
The heart untamable, the tireless mind, 
In equal dissolution shall the clay 
That once was seer or singer flee away-- 
It shall be fire and blown upon the wind. 
Not us befits such change in radiance dressed, 
Not us, O Earth, for whom thou biddest cease 
Our grey endurance of the dark and cold. 
These eyes have watched with grief, and now would rest; 
Rest we desire, and on thy bosom's peace 
The long slow change to unremembering mould.