| |
| “WHAT is it to be dead?” O Life, | |
| Close-held within my own, | |
| What foul breath in the air is rife? | |
| What voice malign, unknown, | |
| Hath dared this whisper faint and dread, | 5 |
| “What is—what is it to be dead?” | |
| |
| Who told you that the song-bird died? | |
| They had no right to say | |
| This to my child—I know we cried | |
| When Robin “went away;” | 10 |
| But this strange thing we never said, | |
| That what we loved so could be dead. | |
| |
| Give me your hands, my only boy! | |
| Health throbs in every vein; | |
| Thou hast not dreamed of earth’s alloy, | 15 |
| Nor stepped where guilt has lain; | |
| O sweet young life! O baby breath! | |
| What hast thou now to do with death? | |
| |
| I even framed for thy dear sake | |
| Anew the childish prayer, | 20 |
| Lest, “If I die before I wake,” | |
| Should rouse a thought or care. | |
| Mother of Christ, was this a sin— | |
| To watch where death might enter in? | |
| |
| Too late! The Angel of the Flame | 25 |
| Relentless cries: “Go hence!” | |
| I think of Eden’s sin and shame; | |
| I gaze—on innocence! | |
| And still the curse? Must I arise | |
| And lead my own from Paradise! | 30 |
| |
| I see the wide, the awful world | |
| Loom up beyond the gate; | |
| I see his pure soul tossed and whirled— | |
| My child! I pray thee wait! | |
| Ask me not what the Angel saith; | 35 |
| My soul this day hath tasted death! | |
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