LIFE may give for love to death Little; what are life's gifts worth To the dead wrapt round with earth? Yet from lips of living breath Sighs or words we are fain to give, All that yet, while yet we live, Life may give for love to death. Dead so long before his day, Passed out of the Italian sun To the dark where all is done Fallen upon the verge of May; Here at life's and April's end How should song salute my friend Dead so long before his day? Not a kindlier life or sweeter Time, that lights and quenches men, Now may quench or light again, Mingling with the mystic metre Woven of all men's lives with his Not a clearer note than this, Not a kindlier life or sweeter. In this heavenliest part of earth He that living loved the light, Light and song, may rest aright, One in death, if strange in birth, With the deathless dead that make Life the lovelier for their sake In this heavenliest part of earth. Light, and song, and sleep at last -- Struggling hands and suppliant knees Get no goodlier gift than these. Song that holds remembrance fast Light that lightens death, attend Round their graves who have to friend Light, and song, and sleep at last. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA: 6. SUNSET IN THE TROPICS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON EPITAPH IN A CHURCH-YARD IN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA by AMY LOWELL ARNOLD [VON] WINKELRIED by JAMES MONTGOMERY SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT: SPRING by THOMAS NASHE ON SEEING THE SUN SHINE ... MY WINDOW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE YEAR by LUCY AIKEN THE PHOENIX REBORN FROM ITS ASHES by LOUIS ARAGON CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 6. OF PATIENCE by WILLIAM BASSE |