"The spider's most attenuated thread, Is cord-- is cable, to man's tender tie On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze." ANOTHER! 'tis a sad word to the heart, That one by one has lost its hold on life, From all it loved or valued, forced to part In detail. Feeling dies not by the knife That cuts at once and kills -- its tortured strife Is with distilled affliction, drop by drop Oozing its bitterness. Our world is fife With grief and sorrow! all that we would prop, Or would be propped with, falls -- when shall the ruin stop! The sea has one and Palestine has one, And Scotland has the last. The snooded maid Shall gaze in wonder on the stranger's stone, And wipe the dust off with her tartan plaid-- And from the lonely tomb where thou art laid, Turn to some other monument -- nor know Whose grave she passes, or whose name she read-- Whose loved and honored relics lie below; Whose is immortal joy, and whose is mortal woe. There is a world of bliss hereafter -- else Why are the bad above, the good beneath The green grass of the grave? The Mower fells Flowers and briers alike. But man shall breathe (When he his desolating blade shall sheathe And rest him from his work) in a pure sky, Above the smoke of burning worlds; -- and Death On scorched pinions with the dead shall lie, When time, with all his years and centuries has passed by. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER by SIDNEY LANIER FAIRIES' SONG by THOMAS RANDOLPH THE CAT OF CATS by WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS TO A CAT by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE PENISKEE by THOMAS GOLD APPLETON A BALLADE OF COLLEGE GIRLS by F. R. BATCHELDER |