DEATH.
Ye may twine young flowers round the sunny brow
Ye deck for the festal day,—
But mine is the shadow that waves o’er them now,
And their beauty has withered away.
Ye may gather bright gems for glory’s shrine,
Afar, from their cavern home—
Ye may gather the gems—but their pride is mine,
They will light the dark cold tomb.
The warrior’s heart beats high and proud,
I have laid my cold hand on him;
And the stately form hath before me bowed,
And the flashing eye is dim.
I have trod the banquet room alone—
And the crowded halls of mirth,
And the low deep wail of the stricken one
Went up from the festal hearth.
I have stood by the pillared domes of old,
And breathed on each classic shrine—
And desolation gray and cold
Now marks the ruins mine.
I have met young Genius, and breathed on the brow
That bore his mystic trace—
And the cheek where passion was wont to glow
Is wrapt in my dark embrace.
They tell of a land where no blight can fall,
Where my ruthless reign is o’er—
Where the ghastly shroud, and the shadowy pall
Shall wither the soul no more.
They say there’s a home in yon blue sphere,
A region of life divine:
But I reck not—since all that is lovely here,
The beauty of earth—is mine.