Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

V. Death and Bereavement

To Death

Anonymous

METHINKS it were no pain to die

On such an eve, when such a sky

O’er-canopies the west;

To gaze my fill on yon calm deep,

And, like an infant, fall asleep

On Earth, my mother’s breast.

There ’s peace and welcome in yon sea

Of endless blue tranquillity:

These clouds are living things;

I trace their veins of liquid gold,

I see them solemnly unfold

Their soft and fleecy wings.

These be the angels that convey

Us weary children of a day—

Life’s tedious nothing o’er—

Where neither passions come, nor woes,

To vex the genius of repose

On Death’s majestic shore.

No darkness there divides the sway

With startling dawn and dazzling day;

But gloriously serene

Are the interminable plains:

One fixed, eternal sunset reigns

O’er the wide silent scene.

I cannot doff all human fear;

I know thy greeting is severe

To this poor shell of clay:

Yet come, O Death! thy freezing kiss

Emancipates! thy rest is bliss!

I would I were away!