University of Virginia Library


21

AT REST.

Make me in marble after I am dead;
Stretched out recumbent, just as I have lain;
That those who care may see me once again
Such as they knew me on my hard wheeled bed:
Save that the motionless and marble head
Will never ache with hope for ever vain;
And down the marble limbs the waves of pain
Will never race, but all be peace instead.
And this be writ: The same blind silent weight
That moves the planets kept him on his back
And forced him in his misery to create.
He lay for years upon a daily rack;
He grudged to none their freer, happier fate;
He hoped no heaven, nor deemed the world all black.