Death is very beautiful,
Solemn, pure, and calm,
As in a shadowy cloister cool,
A lowly murmured psalm,
After some fierce battle-cry
In the windy glare hard by.
Nay, very terrible is death!
A cold, white shape of fear;
By it we talk with bated breath,
As if the thing could hear.
So like, and so unlike the face!
Ah! why borrow their dear grace?
Nay! thou cold mockery of life!
Death, take any other guise!
If they with living joy be rife,
Why looks their image on this wise?
Why make us deem they turn to this,
Who were the pulse of all our bliss?
Death is Satan's cruel jest,
His blaspheming parody!
"Lo! I give your darling rest;
Come and see him by-and-by!
Kiss the unanswering icy stone,
And know thyself alone, alone!
My repose is long and deep,
Not a passing earthly sleep."
Nay! this hath some inner sense;
I would resolve the mystery;
'Tis but a symbol of intense
Unwearying life for these who die.
Lord! may we wake to see Thy face,
And our beloved in Thine embrace?
We dream a dream of cold white death,
And all our being shuddereth.
Ah! when may we interpret, Lord,
The meaning of Thy mystic Word?
Death is very pitiful,
Death for a dear child!
A pure white bud some wanton pull
Scatters on the wild!
And yet one woe may deeper move,
The dying and the death of Love!
He seemed so amiable, so fair,
All holy, a perennial youth!
Dumb and stark he lieth there;
God Himself may weep for ruth.
"Dear Love, perchance, may not be dead,
Only sleeping," some one said.
Ah! death is very beautiful,
Solemn, pure, and calm,
As in a shadowy cloister cool,
A holy chanted psalm,
After some fierce battle-cry
In the windy glare hard by,
Singing, "We are saved from evil,
From the wandering waves' upheaval,
Folded far from very death,
Wherein the spirit withereth."