Rich Rest
My thoughts lie fallow and my dreams lie deep Beneath the field of time, the soil of sleep. Rest too, swift hand; there will be much to reap.
Gilean Douglas
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
My thoughts lie fallow and my dreams lie deep Beneath the field of time, the soil of sleep. Rest too, swift hand; there will be much to reap.
Gilean Douglas treats rest as part of work rather than a break from it. The speaker compares the mind to a field left fallow, where nothing seems to be growing, and the dreams to seeds buried in the dark. Time is the field, sleep is the soil. Everything is quietly happening out of sight.
The last line turns to the "swift hand," which suggests a person who is used to being busy, maybe the speaker's own hand, maybe the writer's. The speaker tells it to stop, and the tone is gentle, almost like a parent settling a restless child. The reason is a promise: "there will be much to reap." Idleness now means abundance later.
The mood is calm and patient, with a hint of reassurance. Short, rhyming lines (deep, sleep, reap) give it a lulling rhythm, as though the poem were helping you slow down and trust that rest is doing its own kind of work.