Invitation Poem by Paul Reed

'Enjoy, suffer, wait: spread the table here freely like us,
And, satisfied, placid, unfretting, watch Time away beamingly! '

From 'Night In The Old Home' by Thomas Hardy


What is there but to suffer?

Between times when we are high,

Life is but the buffer

Between birth and the time we die;



The journey along seems cruel

Given but a glimpse of the light

A thin and watery gruel

Before the starvation of the night;



Would it have been better

Not to have had the chance,

Not ever to have received the letter

Inviting us to the dance.