Poem by William Watson

To a Friend

CHAFING AT ENFORCED IDLENESS 
FROM INTERRUPTED HEALTH

Soon may the edict lapse, that on you lays
This dire compulsion of infertile days,
This hardest penal toil, reluctant rest!
Meanwhile I count you eminently blest,
Happy from labours heretofore well done,
Happy in tasks auspiciously begun.
For they are blest that have not much to rue—
That have not oft mis-heard the prompter's cue,
Stammered and stumbled and the wrong parts played,
And life a Tragedy of Errors made.

1. And These - Are These Indeed the End
2. Well He Slumbers, Greatly Slain
3. The Russ at Kara
4. Liberty Rejected
5. On Exaggerated Deference to Foreign Literary Opinion

Caroline Fry (Wilson) To a Friend ("Behold you the beam")

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