What's life, what's life, little heart? To beat and be glad of breath While death waits on either side,-before and behind us, Death! Mary Ainge De Vere [1844 THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE HERE, where the world is quiet, I am tired of tears and laughter, For men that sow to reap: Here life has death for neighbor, And no such things grow here. No growth of moor or coppice, The Garden of Proserpine Pale beds of blowing rushes, Pale, without name or number, And like a soul belated, In hell and heaven unmated, Comes out of darkness morn. Though one were strong as seven, Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands; Her languid lips are sweeter Than Love's, who fears to greet her, She waits for each and other, 'The life of fruits and corn; And flowers are put to scorn. 3213 There go the loves that wither, The old loves with wearier wings; We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; Time stoops to no man's lure; From too much love of living, That no life lives forever; That even the weariest river Then star nor sun shall waken, In an eternal night. Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] The Changing Road 3215 THE CHANGING ROAD BENEATH the softly falling snow, The wood whose shy anemones Our paths of rustling silken grass Will soon be ermine bands of white The river will be locked in hush, Flown are our minstrels, golden-wing But all the pines are murmuring A sweet, orchestral under-note. So trustfully our hands we lay Within the old, kind hands of Time, Who holds on his mysterious way From rime to bloom, from bloom to rime, And lets us run beside his knee O'er rough and smooth, and touch his load, And play we bear the burden, we, And revel in the changing road. Till ivory dawn and purple noon And dove-gray eve have one by one Traced on the skies their ancient rune, And all our little strength is done. Then Time shall lift a starry torch Gathers the drowsy children in. I wonder if, through that strange sleep, And follow on his beauteous path From snow to flowers, from flowers to snow, Whither the fearless footsteps go. Katharine Lee Bates [1859 THE GREAT MISGIVING "Nor ours," say some, "the thought of death to dread; "The after-silence, when the feast is o'er, And void the places where the minstrels stood, Differs in naught from what hath been before, And is nor ill nor good." Ah, but the Apparition—the dumb sign— And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit, Or homeless night without; And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see And there, O death, thy sting. William Watson [1858 |