Death

"Death, whaur do ye bide, auld Death?"
"I bide in ilka breath,"
Quo' Death;
"No i' the pyramids,
No whaur the wormie rids
'Neth coffin-lids;
I bidena whaur life has been,
An' whaur's nae mair to be dune."

"Death, whaur do ye bide, auld Death?"
"Wi' the leevin, to dee 'at are laith,"
Quo' Death;
"Wi' the man an' the wife
'At loo like life,
Bot strife;
Wi' the bairns 'at hing to their mither,
Wi' a' 'at loo ane anither."

"Death, whaur do ye bide, auld Death?"
"Abune an' aboot an' aneth,"
Quo' Death;
"But o' a' the airts
An' o' a' the pairts,
In herts--
Whan the tane to the tither says, Na,
An' the north win' begins to blaw."

If I had ever thought to write in praise
Of little children and their simple ways,
Far rather had I fashioned cradle verse
To rock to slumber, or the songs a nurse
Might croon above the baby on her breast.
Setting her charge's short-lived woes at rest.
For much more useful are such trifling tasks
Than that which sad misfortune this day asks:
To weep o'er thy deaf grave, dear maiden mine.
And wail the harshness of grim Proserpine.
But now I have no choice of subject: then
I shunned a theme scarce fitting riper men,
And now disaster drives me on by force
To songs unheeded by the great concourse
Of mortals. Verses that I would not sing
The living, to the dead I needs must bring.
Yet though I dry the marrow from my bones,
Weeping another's death, my grief ato...

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race, of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the...

The world is taking little heed
And plods from day to day:
The vulgar flourish like a weed,
The learned pass away.

We miss him on the summer path
The lonely summer day,
Where mowers cut the pleasant swath
And maidens make the hay.

The vulgar take but little heed;
The garden wants his care;
There lies the book he used to read,
There stands the empty chair.

The boat laid up, the voyage oer,
And passed the stormy wave,
The world is going as before,
The poet in his grave.

A youth unto herself Grief took,
Whom everything of joy forsook,
And men passed with denying head,
Saying: "'T were better he were dead."

Grief took him, and with master-touch
Molded his being. I marveled much
To see her magic with the clay,
So much she gave - and took away.
Daily she wrought, and her design
Grew daily clearer and more fine,
To make the beauty of his shape
Serve for the spirit's free escape.
With liquid fire she filled his eyes.
She graced his lips with swift surmise
Of sympathy for others' woe,
And made his every fibre flow
In fairer curves. On brow and chin
And tinted cheek, drawn clean and thin,
She sculptured records rich, great Grief!
She made him loving, made him lief.

I marveled; for, where others saw

Vast was the wealth I carried in life's pack -
    Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust; but Time
    And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime,
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
    Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
    Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love's delight.    Alack!    Alack!

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
    I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
    The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate.
    There was no answer.    Stung by sorrow's goad
    I forced my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate.

Unknown ...

[To the memory of Edwin B. Foster, a member of the Howards, who nobly sacrificed his own life for others, and in remembrance of those unknown to fame or friends who have silently followed in the steps of our Saviour.]



The shadow of death is around us all,
    And life is a sorrowful thing;
For the winds sweep by with a mournful sigh,
    And sad are the tidings they bring.

He is dead--and the strong, brave life that he gave
    Seemed offered to God in vain;
Yet he died, Christ-like, in a labor of love,
    'Mid sorrow and death and pain.

And why should we sorrow--the crown is his
    And the glory of life is won;
Though he died when his labor was just begun,
    Yet the work of his life is done.

The beautiful South is a land of death,

In the waste hour
Between to-day and yesterday
We watched, while on my arm -
Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone -
Dabbled in sweat the sacred head
Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange:
Till the dear face turned dead,
And to a sound of lamentation
The good, heroic soul with all its wealth -
Its sixty years of love and sacrifice,
Suffering and passionate faith - was reabsorbed
In the inexorable Peace,
And life was changed to us for evermore.

Was nothing left of her but tears
Like blood-drops from the heart?
Nought save remorse
For duty unfulfilled, justice undone,
And charity ignored?    Nothing but love,
Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth,
But for this passing
Into the unimaginable abyss
These things ha...

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,

One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,

And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam,
Most individual and bewildering ghost!

And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

DYING THOUGHTS.


As Life's receding sunset fades
    And night descends,
I calmly watch the gathering shades,
As darkness stealthily invades
    And daylight ends.

Earth's span is drawing to its close,
    With every breath;
My pain-racked brain no respite knows,
Yet shrinks it, from the grim repose
    It feels in death.

The curtain falls on Life's last scene,
    The end is neared;
At last I face death's somber screen,
The fleeting joys which intervene
    Have disappeared.

And as a panoramic scroll
    The past unreels;
The mocking past, beyond control,
Though buried, as a parchment roll,
    Its tale reveals.

I stand before the dread, unknown,
    Yet solemn fact;
I see the seeds of foll...

A poor unfortunate, from day to day,
Call'd Death to take him from this world away.
'O Death' he said, 'to me how fair thy form!
Come quick, and end for me life's cruel storm.'
Death heard, and with a ghastly grin,
Knock'd at his door, and enter'd in
'Take out this object from my sight!'
The poor man loudly cried.
'Its dreadful looks I can't abide;
O stay him, stay him' let him come no nigher;
O Death! O Death! I pray thee to retire!'

A gentleman of note
In Rome, Maecenas,[2] somewhere wrote: -
"Make me the poorest wretch that begs,
Sore, hungry, crippled, clothed in rags,
In hopeless impotence of arms and legs;
Provided, after all, you give
The one sweet liberty to live:
I'll ask of Death no greater favour
Than just to stay awa...

Shapeless and grim,
A Shadow dim
O'erhung the ways,
And darkened all my days.
And all who saw,
With bated breath,
Said, "It is Death!"

And I, in weakness
Slipping towards the Night,
In sore affright
Looked up. And lo!--
No Spectre grim,
But just a dim
Sweet face,
A sweet high mother-face,
A face like Christ's Own Mother's face,
Alight with tenderness
And grace.

"Thou art not Death!" I cried;--
For Life's supremest fantasy
Had never thus envisaged Death to me;--
"Thou art not Death, the End!"

In accents winning,
Came the answer,--"Friend,
There is no Death!
I am the Beginning,
--Not the End!"

The beauty and the life
Of life’s and beauty’s fairest paragon
O tears! O grief! hung at a feeble thread
To which pale Atropos had set her knife;
The soul with many a groan
Had left each outward part,
And now did take his last leave of the heart:
Naught else did want, save death, ev’n to be dead;
When the afflicted band about her bed,
Seeing so fair him come in lips, cheeks, eyes,
Cried, ‘Ah! and can Death enter Paradise?‘

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep, -
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Some one was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water - calm, sliding green above the weir;
Water - a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer: drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.

Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops,
Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass.
A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing,
Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant,
And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass.

And one old man looks down from a dusty window
And sees the pigeons circling about the fountain
And desires once more to walk among those trees.
Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain.
Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water.
And soon the pond must freeze.

The light wind blows to his ears a sound of laughter,
Young men shuffle their feet, loaf in the sunlight;
A girl’s laugh rings like a silver bell.
But clearer than all these sounds is a sound he hears
More in his secret heart than in his ears,

If there is any life when death is over,
These tawny beaches will know much of me,
I shall come back, as constant and as changeful
As the unchanging, many-colored sea.

If life was small, if it has made me scornful,
Forgive me; I shall straighten like a flame
In the great calm of death, and if you want me
Stand on the sea-ward dunes and call my name.

    Such days as break the wild bird's heart;
        Such days as kill it and its songs;
    A death which knows a sweeter part
        Of days to which such death belongs.

    And now old eyes are filled with tears,
        As with the rain the frozen flowers;
    Time moves so slowly one but fears
        The burthen on his wasted powers.

    And so he stopped;--and thou art dead!
        And that is found which once was feared:--
    A farewell to thy gray, gray head,
        A goodnight to thy goodly beard!

Whose was that gentle voice, that, whispering sweet,
Promised methought long days of bliss sincere!
Soothing it stole on my deluded ear,
Most like soft music, that might sometimes cheat
Thoughts dark and drooping! 'Twas the voice of Hope.
Of love, and social scenes, it seemed to speak,
Of truth, of friendship, of affection meek;
That, oh! poor friend, might to life's downward slope
Lead us in peace, and bless our latest hours.
Ah me! the prospect saddened as she sung;
Loud on my startled ear the death-bell rung;
Chill darkness wrapt the pleasurable bowers,
Whilst Horror, pointing to yon breathless clay,
"No peace be thine," exclaimed, "away, away!"