 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
EMMA LAZARUS
When on thy bed of pain thou layest low,Daily we saw thy body fade away,
Nor could the love wherewith we loved thee stay
For one dear hour the flesh borne down by woe;
But as the mortal sank. with what white glow
Flamed thy eternal spirit, night and day;
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Lay wreckt and ruined! Ah, is it not so,
Dear poet-comrade, who from sight hast gone;
Is it not so that spirit hath a life
Death may not conquer? But, O dauntless one!
Still must we sorrow. Heavy is the strife
And thou not with us; thou of the old race
That with Jehovah parleyed, face to face.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |