Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

David Gray 1838–61

I Die, Being Young

“WHOM the gods love die young.” The thought is old,

And yet it sooth’d the sweet Athenian mind.

I take it with all pleasure, overbold

Perhaps, yet to its virtue much inclin’d

By an inherent love for what is fair.

This is the utter poetry of woe,

That the bright-flashing gods should cure despair

By love, and make youth precious here below.

I die, being young; and, dying, could become

A pagan, with the tender Grecian trust.

Let death, the fell anatomy, benumb

The hand that writes, and fill my mouth with dust:

Chant no funereal theme, but, with a choral

Hymn, O ye mourners, hail immortal youth auroral.