University of Virginia Library


252

SONNET IV
DEATH TRANSFORMED

Yea, all the face of death, death's bosom, changes;
I pass amid his broad imperious wings;
The warrior black who all the black night ranges
Is as a maid whose red mouth laughs and sings.
About me his resistless arms he flings,
But they are soft as woman's, and his face
As woman's, and his breath about me clings
As woman's—and the whole strange dimlit place
Seems like a lawn, a gladsome grassy space:
“So this is death,” I said, and as I spoke,
Death's arms were bent my body to embrace,
Round me they folded like a lissome cloak,
And in the eyes of death so sweet a thing
I saw revealed, it made my spirit sing.