Is there no greater good than health and ease? Is there no deadlier enemy than death? Is God a dream to deal with as we please And life only the drawing of our breath? Duty a fever-phantom that misleads The sick confusion of a wandering brain? Let the King's Highroad choke with tangled weeds If they but barricade our paths from pain! Give us this day our daily bread—that prayer We all remember! What comes next? The cry "Deliver us from sorrow and from loss, "Who were not made to suffer and to bear!" How strangely beat those words against the sky Where stands unchanging a forgotten cross! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A PSALM OF TRAVEL by GEORGE SANTAYANA BATTLE OF THE BALTIC by THOMAS CAMPBELL FARE WELL by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE THE PROUD MISS MACBRIDE; A LEGEND OF GOTHAM by JOHN GODFREY SAXE THE HOUREGLASSE by JOSEPH BEAUMONT TO A LADY, ON BEING ASKED MY REASON FOR QUITTING ENGLAND by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |