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Death! that struck when I was most confiding.
In my certain faith of joy to be,
Strike again, Time's withered branch dividing
From the fresh root of Eternity!
...

1.
They die - the dead return not - Misery
Sits near an open grave and calls them over,
A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye -
They are the names of kindred, friend and lover,...

If days should pass without a written word
To tell me of thy welfare, and if days
Should lengthen out to weeks, until the maze
Of questioning fears confused me, and I heard....

Yes, there is one who makes us all lay down
Our mushroom vanities, our speculations,
Our well-set theories and calculations,
Our workman's jacket or our monarch's crown!...

I am the outer gate of life where sit
Faith and Unfaith, those two interpreters
That spell in diverse ways what God has writ
In symbols on the archway of the years.
...

Death.


It is the joy, it is the zest of life,
To know that Death, ungainly to the vile,
Is not a traitor with a reckless knife,
And not a serpent with a look of guile,...

Death and birth should dwell not near together:
Wealth keeps house not, even for shame, with dearth:
Fate doth ill to link in one brief tether
Death and birth.
...

'Tis the midnight hour; I heard
The Abbey-bell give out the word.
Seldom is the lamp-ray shed
On some dwarfed foot-farer's head
In the deep and narrow street
Lying ditch-like at my feet...

A Symbol.

[Sidenote: He looks from his window on the midnight town.]

'Tis the midnight hour; I heard
The city clocks give out the word.
Seldom are the lamp-rays shed...

TO AN AGREEABLE YOUNG LADY, BUT EXTREMELY LEAN. 1730

Lord Orrery gives us the following curious anecdote respecting this poem:
...

Some books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn'd:
Ev'n ministers, they ha'e been kenn'd,
In holy rapture,
A rousing whid, at times, to vend,
And nail't wi' Scripture.
...

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on,
The sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another day...

[1]

Death never taketh by surprise
The well-prepared, to wit, the wise -
They knowing of themselves the time
To meditate the final change of clime.
That time, alas! embraces all...

Here is a tale for any man or woman:
A fool sought Death; and braved him with his bauble
Among the graves. At last he heard a hobble,
And something passed him, monstrous, super-human....

A poor unfortunate, from day to day,
Call'd Death to take him from this world away.
'O Death' he said, 'to me how fair thy form!
Come quick, and end for me life's cruel storm.'...

A poor wood-chopper, with his fagot load,
Whom weight of years, as well as load, oppress'd,
Sore groaning in his smoky hut to rest,
Trudged wearily along his homeward road....

This morning, while we sat in talk
Of spring and apple-bloom,
Lo! Death stood in the garden walk,
And peered into the room.

Your back was turned, you did not see
The shadow that he made....

Viewless essence, thin and bare,
Well nigh melted into air,
Still with fondness hovering near
The earthly form thou once didst wear,

Pause upon thy pinion's flight;
Be thy course to left or right,...

They're taking me to the gallows, mother--they mean to hang me high;
They're going to gather round me there, and watch me till I die;
All earthly joy has vanished now, and gone each mortal hope,--...

Time is the bound of things; where'er we go
Fate gives a meeting, Death's the end of woe.