The Poetical Works of the Rev. George Croly :: :: University of Virginia Library

Death, thou art terrible! 't is not the sting
Of the mere sense that makes thy suffering;
'T is not the pang, the thirst, the midnight groan;
Though all their host do homage to thy throne;
Thy terrors live in thy dark mystery,
All crowded in the one drear thought—we die!
We see the dying struggle,—all thus far
Is plain; up springs at once the mighty bar,
Gloomy as night; no twilight upper ray
Helps out the image of its further day.
And is this all;—the worm, the hideous sleep
That makes the very flesh by instinct creep.
Who that beside the opening tomb has stray'd,
And borne to see the gambols of the spade,
While the slave scoffing in the trench below
Flings up some fearful thing at every throw;
Felt not within, however fortified
By holy truth, however fool'd by pride,
A shock, a shrinking of the natural heart,
Lest there at last might lie his better part;

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Ev'n with those whiten'd bones, that half changed clay,
That grinning skull, that coffin's loose decay?
Felt not the question with his spirit strive,
“Were not these—men? and can these dry bones live?”
Must all his dreams of high futurity
Be finish'd here, and that vile thing—be he;
Can soul be but a phantasy, a breath;
Can dust, air, stillness, nothingness, be death?

Yet there are sensual fools, (high Heaven!) that brave,
Nay boast to scorn (they 'll know it yet,) the grave.
What is their courage? blindness! Could their eye
But glance upon its drear immensity,
The terrors that like clouds upon it ride,
The billows that have no returning tide;
Then should we see, like babes, those taunters shrink,
Who now dance madly on the crumbling brink;
See those rebound in horror, who now vie
In cold, gross, guilty carelessness—to die!

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It has a Ruler! woe to him who treads
But where his hand across its darkness leads.
But one—but one of all men, on the grave
Can fix his vision, and be wisely brave;
He—who has felt the spirit's inward chain,
And struggled, ev'n when struggle seem'd in vain;
Who, fainting, prayed;—fall'n, wept;—from his low knee
Sent looks to heaven not meant for man to see;
Till came their answer! till sublimed, subdued,
His spirit burn'd,—one holy habitude!