ANTICIPATION

The thought of death to me

Is like a well of waters, deep and dim—

Cool-gleaming, hushed, and hidden gratefully

Among the palms asleep

At silver evening on the desert’s rim.

Or as a couch of stone,

Whereon by moonlight, in a marble room,

Some fevered king reposes all alone—

So is the hope of sleep,

The inalienable surety of the tomb.