Respite

"I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.”  

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“The earth laughs in flowers.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I must have flowers, always, and always.” 
Claude Monet

“The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”  

Tennessee Williams, Camino Real

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”  
Milan Kundera

I once asked a hermit in Italy how he could venture to live alone, in a single cottage, on the top of a mountain, a mile from any habitation? He replied, that Providence was his next-door neighbor. 
Laurence Sterne

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” 
C.S. Lewis

Respite.
Me

Come, Rest Awhile

Come, rest awhile, and let us idly stray
In glimmering valleys, cool and far away.

Come from the greedy mart, the troubled street,
And listen to the music, faint and sweet,

That echoes ever to a listening ear,
Unheard by those who will not pause to hear­

The wayward chimes of memory's pensive bells,
Wind-blown o'er misty hills and curtained dells.

One step aside and dewy buds unclose
The sweetness of the violet and the rose;

Song and romance still linger in the green,
Emblossomed ways by you so seldom seen,

And near at hand, would you but see them, lie
All lovely things beloved in days gone by.

You have forgotten what it is to smile
In your too busy life ­come, rest awhile. 


~
Lucy Maud Montgomery