Hush! she is dead. Tread gently as the light
Steals in the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look:—in death’s ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber, very cold,
Her beautiful youth!—Proud as heroic might,—
Brought low by him whose touch is shadow and mold.
Old earth she is now: energy of birth
Hath fledged glad wings and tried them suddenly:
The eyes that held have freed their maiden mirth:
The spark of spirit, which made this to be,
Shines in some fairer star than this of Earth,
Some Fairy-star of far eternity.
A sod is this; whence, what were once those eyes,
Will grow blue wildflowers in some happier air!
Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,
Haply, some summer with her affluent hair!
Some rose reveal her cheeks: and the wise skies
Will clasp her beauty in some young tree there.
The chastity of death hath filled her so
No dreams of life may reach her in her rest;
No dreams the heart exhausted here below,
Hopes built within the romance of her breast.
Now she will sleep, like music, silent, slow,—
That wakes the buds, to golden life caressed.
The winds of spring, that whisper to the grass;
The rain, that sets the red roots harping; sound,
And gleam and color of the dews that glass
Globes of concentric beauty on the ground;
Shall hint of her; and she herself shall pass,
Like prayer, into each flower with memory crowned.
So, though she’s dead, you see she is not dead:
All things are vocal of her: lost in sleep
She lies: its narrow house the soul hath fled;
Her soul, still near us, haply; while the deep
Remains unvoyaged: waiting to be led
It still delays, held here by us who weep.
We should restrain our anguish;—(merciless,
Albeit it is, and bitter cruel the grave:)—
Grief wrings our dead with more than grief’s distress,
Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.
And curse not death!—Yea, rather let us bless
That conqueror who makes us less a slave!
To principles of passion and of pride;
To sin and circumstance and lust and law!
Slave to all these, like rags now flung aside!—
Wouldst have the soul resume them, and withdraw
From its inheritance, where, as a bride,
It stands arrayed in glory and in awe?
“Unjust”?—God is not. Yea, hast thou not all,
All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay,
Thy well belovéd, made the spiritual
A restless vassal of the night and day?
This hath been thine and is: the cosmic call
Rang through this house, and took its own away.
But man, in selfishness, from its estate,—
Won with what pains and devastating cares,
What bootless battling with resistless fate,
What mailed endeavor with unyielding years,—
Would bar the soul, Heaven grants him here as mate,
And being compelled, returns Heaven’s loan with tears.