Death borders upon our birth; and our cradle stands in our grave.
Come to the bridal-chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke!
Its hues are brightest. Like an infant's breath
Are tropic winds before the voice of death.
The ancients dreaded death: the Christian
can only fear dying.
And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay
The song of the sailors in glee:
So I think of the luminous footprints that bore
The comfort o'er dark Galilee,
And wait for the signal to go to the shore,
To the ship that is waiting for me.
On a lone barren isle, where the wild roaring
billows
Assail the stern rock, and the loud tempests
rave,
The hero lies still, while the dew-drooping willows,
Like fond weeping mourners, lean over his
grave.
The lightnings may flash and the loud thunders
rattle;
He heeds not, he hears not; he's free from all
pain.
He sleeps his last sleep, he has fought his last
battle;
No sound can awake him to glory again!
Death rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set—but all.
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death.
"Passing away" is written on the world and
all the world contains.
But Life in act? How should the Unteeming
Grave
Be victor over thee,
Mother, a mother of men?
Main DiSo be my passing.
My task accomplished and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gathered to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
So many are the deaths we die
Before we can be dead indeed.
Into the everlasting lull,
The immortal, incommunicable dream.
Not lost, but gone before.
They are not amissi, but prsemissi;
Not lost but gone before.
Prsemissi non amissi.
Not lost but gone before.
Those that God loves, do not live long.
I know thou art gone to the home of thy rest—
Then why should my soul be so sad?
I know thou art gone where the weary are blest,
And the mourner looks up, and is glad;
I know thou hast drank of the Lethe that flows
In a land where they do not forget,
That sheds over memory only repose,
And takes from it only regret.
And death makes equal the high and low.
(Mors, mortis morti mortem nisi morte dedisset
[dedisses].)
Death when to death a death by death hath
given
Then shall be op't the long shut gates of heaven .
Now I am about to take my last voyage, a
great leap in the dark.
