How can the tree but waste and wither away That hath not sometime comfort of the sun? How can that flower but fade and soon decay That always is with dark clouds over-run? Is this a life? Nay, death you may it call, That feels each pain and knows no joy at all. What foodless beast can live long in good plight? Or is it life where senses there be none? Or what availeth eyes without their light? Or else a tongue to him that is alone? Is this a life? Nay, death you may it call, That feels each pain and knows no joy at all. Whereto serve ears if that there be no sound? Or such a head where no device doth grow But all of plaints, since sorrow is the ground Whereby the heart doth pine in deadly woe? Is this a life? Nay, death you may it call, That feels each pain and knows no joy at all. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SECOND OPINION by STEPHEN CUSHMAN THAT SUCH HAVE DIED by EMILY DICKINSON ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES by WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY NATURAL HISTORY by MOTHER GOOSE WISTFULNESS by KATHARINE ADAMS THE APOLOGY OF THE BISHOPS IN ANSWER TO BONNER'S GHOST by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SONG, FR. A VISION OF GIORGIONE: FELICE'S SONG by GORDON BOTTOMLEY |