Love and Death

Margaret Deland (1857–1945)

ALAS! that men must see

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.

Glad, when with strong, cool hand

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.

But Love’s insistent voice

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!