IN youth, when blood was warm and fancy high, I mocked at death. How many a quaint conceit I wove about his veiled head and feet. Vaunting aloud. @3Why need we dread to die?@1 But now, enthralled by deep solemnity. Death's pale phantasmal shade I darkly greet: Ghostlike it haunts the hearth, it haunts the street, Or drearier makes drear midnight's mystery. Ah, soul-perplexing vision! oft I deem That antique myth is true which pictured death A masked and hideous form all shrank to see; But at the last slow ebb of mortal breath, Death, his mask melting like a night-mare dream, Smiled, -- heaven's high-priest of Immortality! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA by GEORGE BERKELEY A BOOK OF AIRS SONG 18 by THOMAS CAMPION THE PERSIANS (PERSAE): SALAMIS - MESSENGER by AESCHYLUS ARETEMIAS by ANTIPATER OF SIDON |