O BLESSED Dead! beyond all earthly pains: Beyond the calculation of low needs; Thy growth no longer chok'd by earthly weeds; Thy spirit clear'd from care's corrosive chains. O blessed Dead! O blessed Life-in-death, Transcending all life's poor decease of breath! Thou walkest not upon some desolate moor In the storm-wildering midnight, when thine own, Thy trusted friend, hath lagg'd and left thee lone. He knows not poverty who, being poor, Hath still one friend. But he who fain had kept The comrade whom his zeal hath over-stept. Thou sufferest not the friendly cavilling Impugning motive; nor that worse than spear Of foeman, -- biting doubt of one most dear Laid in thy deepest heart, a barbed sting Never to be withdrawn. For we were friends: Alas! and neither to the other bends. Thou hast escap'd continual falling off Of old companions; and that aching void Of the proud heart which has been over-buoy'd With friendship's idle breath; and now the scoff Of failure even as idly passeth by Thy poor remains: -- @3Thou@1 soaring through the sky. Knowing no more that malady of hope -- The sickness of deferral, thou canst look Thorough the heavens and, healthily patient, brook Delay, -- defeat. For in thy vision's scope Most distant cometh. We might see it too, But dizzying faintness overveils our view. And when disaster flings us in the dust, Or when we wearily drop on the highway-side, Or when in prison'd, exil'd depths the pride Of suffering bows its head, as oft it must, We cannot, looking on thy wasted corse, Perceive the future. Lend us of thy force! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HERO-WORSHIP; SONNET by AMY LOWELL BEFORE THE RAIN by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH A DIALOGUE ANTHEM by GEORGE HERBERT ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES by WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS; FLOREAT ETONA by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED PHILLIS'S AGE by MATTHEW PRIOR |