Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1702/Will the Past be Past?

II. — WILL THE PAST BE PAST?

"Bury, oh dead, thy dead!" Can Death's behest
Close the pale eyelids? Can dead fingers fold
Dead hands in peace, or in the graveyard cold
Commit the soulless body to its rest?
guns rise and set; each evening in the west
Dim clouds attend the funeral of the day;
Night falls; men sleep; and still, oh dead: ye stay.
No peace for me on earth's unearthly breast
Haunted by you. I would, I would, oh dead,
I would ye had no immortality!
I would ye too could sleep and let me be!
Rest, rest! hath not your requiem been said?
Ah no! With faces turned to me they lie;
They rise, they answer — "No, we cannot die!"

U. Macmillan's Magazine.