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Home  »  American Sonnets  »  George Parsons Lathrop (1851–1898)

Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.

“O wholesome Death”

George Parsons Lathrop (1851–1898)

O WHOLESOME Death, thy sombre funeral-car

Looms ever dimly on the lengthening way

Of life; while, lengthening still, in sad array,

My deeds in long procession go, that are

As mourners of the man they helped to mar.

I see it all in dreams, such as waylay

The wandering fancy when the solid day

Has fallen in smouldering ruins, and night’s star,

Aloft there, with its steady point of light

Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in sleep.

Ah, when I die, and planets hold their flight

Above my grave, still let my spirit keep

Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse,

’Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o’er my corse!