We all within our graves shall sleep,
A hundred years to come; No living soul for us will weep
A hundred years to come; But other men our lands shall till, And others then our streets shall fill, While other birds shall sing as gay, As bright the sunshine as to-day, A hundred years to come!
William Goldsmith Brown [1812-1906]
SCAR not earth's breast that I may have Somewhere above her heart a grave;
Mine was a life whose swift desire
Bent ever less to dust than fire;
Then through the swift white path of flame Send back my soul to whence it came; From some great peak, storm challenging, My death-fire to the heavens fling; The rocks my altar, and above The still eyes of the stars I love; No hymn, save as the midnight wind Comes whispering to seek his kind.
Heap high the logs of spruce and pine, Balsam for spices and for wine; Brown cones, and knots a golden blur
Of hoarded pitch, more sweet than myrrh; Cedar, to stream across the dark Its scented embers spark on spark; Long, shaggy boughs of juniper, And silvery, odorous sheaves of fir; Spice-wood, to die in incense smoke Against the stubborn roots of oak, Red to the last for hate or love As that red stubborn heart above.
Watch till the last pale ember dies, Till wan and low the dead pyre lies, Then let the thin white ashes blow To all earth's winds a finer snow; There is no wind of hers but I Have loved it as it whistled by; No leaf whose life I would not share, No weed that is not some way fair; Hedge not my dust in one close urn, It is to these I would return,—
The wild, free winds, the things that know No master's rule, no ordered row,-
To be, if Nature will, at length
Part of some great tree's noble strength; Growth of the grass; to live anew In many a wild-flower's richer hue; Find immortality, indeed,
In ripened heart of fruit and seed. Time grants not any man redress Of his broad law, forgetfulness; I parley not with shaft and stone, Content that in the perfume blown
From next year's hillsides something sweet And mine, shall make earth more complete. Sharlot M. Hall [1870-
IF I should fall asleep one day,
And should my spirit from the clay Go dreaming out the Heavenward way, Or thence be softly borne,—
I pray you, angels, do not first
With that blest anthem oft rehearsed,— "Behold, the bonds of Death are burst,"- Lest I should faint with fear.
But let some happy bird at hand
The silence break:
So shall I dimly understand
That dawn has touched a blossoming land, And sigh myself awake.
From that deep rest emerging so To lift the head
And see the bath-flower's bell of snow, The pink arbutus, and the low Spring-beauty streaked with red,
Will all suffice-no other where
Impelled to roam,
Till some blithe wanderer, passing fair, Will smiling pause, of me aware,
And murmur, "Welcome home!”
So, sweetly greeted, I shall rise To kiss her cheek;
Then lightly soar in lovely guise, As one familiar with the skies,
Who finds, and need not seek.
Amanda T. Jones [1835
VENUS has lit her silver lamp
Low in the purple West, Casting a soft and mellow light Upon the sea's full breast; In one clear path-as if to guide Some pale, wayfaring guest.
Far out, far out the restless bar Starts from a troubled sleep, Where, roaring through the narrow straits,
The meeting waters leap;
But still that shining pathway leads
Across the lonely deep.
When I sail out the narrow straits Where unknown dangers be, And cross the troubled, moaning bar To the mysterious sea,
Dear God, wilt thou not set a lamp
Low in the West for me?
I SHALL not see the faces of my friends, Nor hear the songs the rested reapers sing After the labors of the harvesting,
In those dark nights before the summer ends; Nor see the floods of spring, the melting snow, Nor in the autumn twilight hear the stir Of reedy marshes, when the wild ducks whir And circle black against the afterglow. My mother died; she shall not have to weep; My wife will find another home; my child, Too young, will never grieve or know; but I Have found my brother, and contentedly I'll lay my head upon his knees and sleep. O brother Death, I knew you when you smiled. Maurice Baring 1874-
IF LOVE WERE JESTER AT THE COURT OF DEATH"
IF Love were jester at the court of Death, And Death the king of all, still would I pray, "For me the motley and the bauble, yea, Though all be vanity, as the Preacher saith, The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath!" Then would I kneel the monarch to obey, And kiss that pale hand, should it spare or slay; Since I have tasted love, what mattereth! But if, dear God, this heart be dry as sand, And cold as Charon's palm holding Hell's toll,
How worse! how worse! Scorch it with sorrow's brand! Haply, though dead to joy, 'twould feel that coal; Better a cross, and nails through either hand,
Than Pilate's palace and a frozen soul!
Frederic Lawrence Knowles [1869-1905]
"DEAR as remembered kisses after death"- We read and pause, toying the pliant page With absent fingers while we question slow, By whom remembered? Not by those that live, And love again, and wed, and know fresh joys, Forgetting the pale past. Ah, no! for them, The sudden stirring of such long-whelmed thought Means shock and pain, and swift reburial. But it may be, that with the dreaming dead, Who sank away quick pierced by despair, It may be that their stillness is aglow Through soft recalling of each loved caress; Perchance it is of them the poet saith "Dear as remembered kisses after death." Minor Watson [18
I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.
Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle Weatherworn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion, With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.
The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and mo
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.
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