 | Thought and word |  |
78
DEATH DEPOSED.
I.
Death stately came to a young man, and said“If thou wert dead,
What matter?” The young man replied,
“See my young bride,
Whose life were all one blackness if I died.
My land requires me; and the world's self, too,
Methinks, would miss some things that I can do.”
II.
Then Death in scorn this only said,“Be dead,”
And so he was. And soon another's hand
Made rich his land.
The sun, too, of three summers had the might
To bleach the widow's hue, light and more light,
Again to bridal white.
And nothing seem'd to miss beneath that sun
His work undone.
III.
But Death soon met another man, whose eyeWas Nature's spy;
Who said, “Forbear thy too triumphant scorn.
The weakest born
Of all the sons of men, is by his birth
Heir of the Might Eternal; and this Earth
Is subject to him in his place.
Thou leav'st no trace.
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IV.
“Thou,—the mock Tyrant that men fear and hate,Grim fleshless Fate,
Cold, dark, and wormy thing of loss and tears?
Not in the sepulchres
Thou dwellest, but in my own crimson'd heart;
Where while it beats we call thee Life. Depart!
A name, a shadow, into any gulf,
Out of this world, which is not thine,
But mine:
Or stay!—because thou art
Only Myself.”
| Thought and word | |