Worship their sleeping deities, yet Death
Scorns votaries and stops the praying breath:
To hallowed shrines intending Fate will come,
And drag you from the altar to the tomb.
Go, frantic poet, with delusions fed,
Thick laurels guard your consecrated head—
Now the sweet master of your art is dead.
What can wehope, since that a narrow span
Can measure the remains of thee, Great Man?
. . . . . . . .
If any poor remains survive the flames
Except thin shadows and mere empty names,
Free in Elysium shall Tibullus rove,
Nor fear a second death should cross his love.
There shall Catullus, crowned with bays, impart
To his far dearer friend his open heart;
There Gallus (if Fame's hundred tongues all lie)
Shall, free from censure, no more rashly die.
Such shall our poet's blest companions be,
And in their deaths, as in their lives, agree.
But thou, rich Urn, obey my strict commands,
Guard thy great charge from sacrilegious hands;
Thou, Earth, Tibullus' ashes gently use,
And be as soft and easy as his Muse.
G. Stepney.
240
AFTER death nothing is, and nothing death—
The utmost limits of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hope of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear,
Nor be concerned which way, or where,
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead, we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring Time swallows us whole,
Impartial Death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul Fiend that rules
The everlasting fiery goals,
Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools,
With his grim grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimsies and no more.
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
261
AND so Death took him. Yet be comforted:
Above this sea of sorrow lift thy head.
Death—or his shadow—look, is over all;
What but an alternating funeral
The long procession of the nights and days?
The starry heavens fail, the solid earth
Fails and its fashion. Why, beholding this,
Why with our wail o'er sad mortality
Mourn we for men, mere men, that fade and fall?
Battle or shipwreck, love or lunacy,
Some warp o' the will, some taint o' the blood, some touch
Of winter's icy breath, the Dog-star's rage
Relentless, or the dank and ghostly mists
Of Autumn—any or all of these suffice
To die by. In the fee and fear of Fate
Lives all that is. We one by one depart
Into the silence—one by one. The Judge
Shakes the vast urn: the lot leaps forth: we die.
But heis happy, and you mourn in vain.
He has outsoared the envy of gods and men,
False fortune and the dark and treacherous way,
—Scatheless: he never lived to pray for death,
Nor sinned—to fear her, nor deserved to die.
We that survive him, weak and full of woes,
Live ever with a fearful eye on Death—
The how and when of dying: 'Death' the thunder,
'Death' the wild lightning speaks to us.
In vain,—
Atedius hearkens not to words of mine.
Yet shall he hearken to the dead: be done,
Sweet lad he loved, be done with Death, and come,
Leaving the dark Tartarean halls, come hither;
Come, for thou canst: 'tis not to Charon given,
Nor yet to Cerberus, to keep in thrall
The innocent soul: come to thy father, soothe
His sorrow, dry his eyes, and day and night
A living voice be with him—look upon him,
Tell him thou art not dead (thy sister mourns,
Comfort her, comfort as a brother can)
And win thy parents back to thee again.
H.W.G.
262
WHAT sin was mine, sweet, silent boy-god, Sleep,
Or what, poor sufferer, have I left undone,
That I should lack thy guerdon, I alone?
Quiet are the brawling streams: the shuddering deep
Sinks, and the rounded mountains feign to sleep.
The high seas slumber pillowed on Earth's breast;
All flocks and birds and beasts are stilled in rest,
But my sad eyes their nightly vigil keep.
O! if beneath the night some happier swain,
Entwined in loving arms, refuse thy boon
In wanton happiness,—come hither soon,
Come hither, Sleep. Let happier mortals gain