 | Jones Very : The Complete Poems |  |
Life and Death
Men live and die in secret; none can seeWhen lighting up, or going out the flame,
Save the All-Seeing eye; frail mortals, we
Call death and life, what are but so in name.
Death is the living to thyself in sin,
Which thou dost pleasure, ease, or grandeur call;
Nor even now death may for thee begin,
Before the shadows of the funeral pall;
Life is the lifting up which thou dost feel,
When thy feet follow where love bids thee go;
A life beyond disease, or severing steel,
Which naught but Him who gives it fears below;
Such be thy life! and thou in heaven shalt live,
When men unto the earth thy body give.
Poem No. 328; c. II December 1858
| Jones Very : The Complete Poems | |