 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
“CALL ME NOT DEAD”
Call me not dead when I, indeed, have goneInto the company of the everliving
High and most glorious poets! Let thanksgiving
Rather be made. Say: “He at last hath won
Rest and release, converse supreme and wise,
Music and song and light of immortal faces;
To-day, perhaps, wandering in starry places,
He hath met Keats, and known him by his eyes.
To-morrow (who can say?) Shakespeare may pass,
And our lost friend just catch one syllable
Of that three-centuried wit that kept so well;
Or Milton; or Dante, looking on the grass
Thinking of Beatrice, and listening still
To chanted hymns that sound from the heavenly hill.”
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |