{63}

LXIII.

And Death is the glad clasp of knotted braids;

Death seals the circlet, that Life gradual twines;

In all that’s fair, Death, inartistic, trades;

Beauty he saps, beleaguering Youth with mines;

O, art thou usher to a fuller world,

Grim Death, whose smile is cased in a frown?

Or speak’st thou only to an infant curl’d,

Dreaming a moment in a bed of down?

Stalk not too proudly, ravisher of life,

Thy boast shall reach no pearl in Nature’s casket;

What sinks, benumb’d, though lovely, in the strife

Shall cast the slough, that could a moment mask it.

I cannot wholly hate nor love thee, Death,

Thou tak’st my life, but robb’st my friend of breath.

{64}

{64}

LXIV.

Doubt struggles into Faith, and calls it life,

 Prev. P 54/118 next