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Laus Mortis

3267

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes cease to be,
And Thou were left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou-Thou art Being and Breath,

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.
Emily Bronte [1818-1848]

LAUS MORTIS

NAY, why should I fear Death,

Who gives us life, and in exchange takes breath?

He is like cordial Spring

That lifts above the soil each buried thing;—

Like Autumn, kind and brief—

The frost that chills the branches frees the leaf;—

Like Winter's stormy hours

That spread their fleece of snow to save the flowers.

The lordliest of all things,

Life lends us only feet, Death gives us wings!

Fearing no covert thrust,

Let me walk onward, armed with valiant trust,

Dreading no unseen knife,

Across Death's threshold step from life to life!

O all ye frightened folk,

Whether ye wear a crown or bear a yoke,

Laid in one equal bed,

When once your coverlet of grass is spread,

What daybreak need you fear?

The Love will rule you there which guides you here!

Where Life, the Sower, stands,
Scattering the ages from his swinging hand

Thou waitest, Reaper lone,

Until the multitudinous grain hath grown

Scythe-bearer, when thy blade Harvests my flesh, let me be unafraid!

God's husbandman thou art!

In His unwithering sheaves, O bind my heart! Frederic Lawrence Knowles [1869-1905]

"WHEN I HAVE FEARS"

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charact❜ry

Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love!-then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
John Keats [1795-1821]

The Dying Christian to His Soul 3269

LAST SONNET

BRIGHT Star! would I were steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death.
John Keats [1795-1821]

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL

Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes Comesque Corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula, rigida, nudula?

Nec, ut soles, dabis joca.

ADRIANI MORIENTIS, AD ANIMAM SUAM

VITAL spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, O quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,

Sister Spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes; my ears

With sounds seraphic ring!

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?

O Death! where is thy sting?

Alexander Pope [1688-1744]

"BEYOND THE SMILING AND THE WEEPING"

BEYOND the smiling and the weeping

I shall be soon;

Beyond the waking and the sleeping,
Beyond the sowing and the reaping,
I shall be soon.

Love, rest, and home!

Sweet hope!

Lord, tarry not, but come.

Beyond the blooming and the fading
I shall be soon;

Beyond the shining and the shading,
Beyond the hoping and the dreading,
I shall be soon.

Beyond the rising and the setting
I shall be soon;

Beyond the calming and the fretting,
Beyond remembering and forgetting,
I shall be soon.

Beyond the gathering and the strowing
I shall be soon;

Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,
Beyond the coming and the going,
I shall be soon.

Beyond the parting and the meeting
I shall be soon;

Beyond the farewell and the greeting,

Beyond this pulse's fever beating,
I shall be soon.

Life

Beyond the frost chain and the fever

I shall be soon;

Beyond the rock waste and the river,
Beyond the ever and the never,

I shall be soon.

Love, rest, and home!

Sweet hope!

Lord, tarry not, but come.

3271

Horatius Bonar [1808-1889]

"I STROVE WITH NONE"

I STROVE With none; for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art;

I warmed both hands before the fire of life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

DEATH

DEATH stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear;

Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

LIFE

LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,

I own to me's a secret yet.

But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be

As all that then remains of me.

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