C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Margaret Deland (18571945)
Love and Death
A
Love, before Death!
Else they content might be
With their short breath;
Aye, glad when the pale sun
Showed restless Day was done,
And endless Rest begun!
Death clasped their own,
And with a strange command
Hushed every moan;
Glad to have finished pain
And labor wrought in vain,
Blurred by Sin’s deepening stain.
Bids Self to flee:—
“Live that I may rejoice;
Live on for me!”
So, for Love’s cruel mind,
Men fear this Rest to find,
Nor know great Death is kind!