ALL Doctors and Confessors, Martyrs and holy Souls, Lighten my path of darkness With your aureoles, When I come to die. Three times shall I perish: Once when my will, Loathing itself for learning, Learns a heavenly skill To bring itself to die. Once when my tired body Death touches with his hand, Wrapping all my movements In a ghostly band, And to earth I die. Once—O Soul too happy If it probe the gloom Of its last deprival In the mystic tomb, Where the elect must die; If it find the inmost Final mystery Of dying even from Heaven, And that death is He! If it come to die. Pray, all you Confessors, And, O crowned with palm Stephen and all Martyrs, That I find your calm, When I come to die. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A WEALTHY MAN by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE CLOUDS: THE CLOUD CHORUS by ARISTOPHANES DISDAIN RETURNED by THOMAS CAREW THE BROKEN HEART by JOHN DONNE THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM, THE MURDERER by THOMAS HOOD |