Proverbial Philosophy / The First and Second Series

by Unknown

OF DEATH.

Keep silence, daughter of frivolity,—for Death is in that chamber!

Startle not with echoing sound the strangely solemn peace.

Death is here in spirit, watcher of a marble corpse,—

That eye is fixed, that heart is still,—how dreadful in its stillness!

Death, new tenant of the house, pervadeth all the fabric;

He waiteth at the head, and he standeth at the feet, and hideth in the caverns of the breast:

Death, subtle leech, hath anatomized soul from body,

Dissecting well in every nerve its spirit from its substance:

Death, rigid lord, hath claimed the heriot clay,

While joyously the youthful soul hath gone to take his heritage:

Death, cold usurer, hath seized his bonded debtor;

Death, savage despot, hath caught his forfeit serf;

Death, blind foe, wreaketh petty vengeance on the flesh;

Death, fell cannibal, gloateth on his victim,

And carrieth it with him to the grave, that dismal banquet-hall,

Where in foul state the Royal Goul holdeth secret orgies.

Hide it up, hide it up, draw the decent curtain:

Hence! curious fool, and pry not on corruption:

For the fearful mysteries of change are being there enacted,

And many actors play their part on that small stage, the tomb.

Leave the clay, that leprous thing, touch not the fleshly garment:

Dust to dust, it mingleth well among the sacred soil:

It is scattered by the winds, it is wafted by the waves, it mixeth with herbs and cattle,

But God hath watched those morsels, and hath guided them in care:

Each waiting soul must claim his own, when the archangel soundeth,

And all the fields, and all the hills, shall move a mass of life;

Bodies numberless crowding on the land, and covering the trampled sea,

Darkening the air precipitate, and gathered scatheless from the fire;

The Himalayan peaks shall yield their charge, and the desolate steppes of Siberia,

The Maelström disengulph its spoil, and the iceberg manumit its captive:

All shall teem with life, the converging fragments of humanity,

Till every conscious essence greet his individual frame;

For in some dignified similitude, alike, yet different in glory,

This body shall be shaped anew, fit dwelling for the soul:

The hovel hath grown to a palace, the bulb hath burst into the flower,

Matter hath put on incorruption, and is at peace with spirit.

Amen,—and so it shall be:—but now, the scene is drear,—

Yea, though promises and hope strive to cheat its sadness;

Full of grief, though faith herself is strong to speed the soul,

For the partner of its toil is left behind to endure an ordeal of change.

Dear partner, dear and frail, my loved though humble home,—

Should I cast thee off without a pang, as a garment flung aside?

Many years, for joy and sorrow, have I dwelt in thee,

How shall I be reckless of thy weal, nor hope for thy perfection?—

This also, He that lent thee for my uses in mortality,

Shall well fulfil with boundless praise on that returning day:

Behold, thou shalt be glorified: thou, mine abject friend,

And should I meanly scorn thy state, until it rise to greatness?

Far be it, O my soul, from thine expectant essence,

To be heedless, if indignity or folly desecrate those thine ashes:

Keep them safe with careful love; and let the mound be holy;

And, thou that passest by, revere the waiting dead.

Naples sitteth by the sea, key-stone of an arch of azure,

Crowned by consenting nations peerless queen of gaiety:

She laugheth at the wrath of Ocean, she mocketh the fury of Vesuvius,

She spurneth disease and misery and famine, that crowd her sunny streets:

The giddy dance, the merry song, the festal glad procession,

The noonday slumber and the midnight serenade,—all these make up her Life:

Her Life?—and what her Death?—look we to the end of life,—

Solon, and Tellus the Athenian, wisely have ye pointed to the grave.

For behold yon dreary precinct,—those hundreds of stone wells,

A pit for a day, a pit for a day,—a pit to be sealed for a year:

And in the gloom of night, they raise the year-closed lid,—

Look in,—for gnawing lime hath half consumed the carcases;

Thus they hurl the daily dead into that horrible pit,

The dead that only died this day,—as unconsidered offal!

There, a stark white heap, unwept, unloved, uncared for,

Old men and maidens, young men and infants, mingle in hideous corruption;

Fling in the gnawing lime,—seal up the charnel for a year;

For lo, a morrow's dawn hath tinged the mountain summit.

O fair false city, thou gay and gilded harlot,

Woe, for thy wanton heart, woe, for thy wicked hardness:

Woe unto thee, that the lightsomeness of Life, beneath Italian suns,

Should meet the solemnity of Death, in a sepulchre so foul and fearful.

For that, even to the best, the wise and pure and pious,

Death, repulsive king, thine iron rule is terrible:

Yea, and even at the best, in company of buried kindred,

With hallowing rites, and friendly tears, and the dear old country church,

Death, cold and lonely, thy frigid face is hateful,

The bravest look on thee with dread, the humblest curse thy coming.

Still, ye unwise among mankind, your foolishness hath added fears;

The crowded cemetery, the catacomb of bones, the pestilential vault,

With fancy's gliding ghost at eve, her moans and flaky footfalls,

And the gibbering train of terror to fright your coward hearts.

We speak not here of sin, nor the phantoms of a bloody conscience,

Nor of solaces, and merciful pardon: we heed but the inevitable grave;

The grave, that wage of guilt, that due return to dust,

The grave, that goal of earth, and starting-post for Heaven.

Plant it with laurels, sprinkle it with lilies, set it upon yonder dewy hill

Midst holy prayers, and generous griefs, and consecrating blessings:

Let Sophocles sleep among his ivy, green perennial garlands,

Let olives shade their Virgil, and roses bloom above Corinne;

To his foster-mother, Ocean, entrust the mariner in hope;

The warrior's spirit, let it rise on high from the flaming fragrant pyre.

But heap not coffins and corruption to infect the mass of living,

Nor steal from odious realities the charitable poetry of Death:

It is wise to gild uncomeliness, it is wise to mask necessity,

It is wise from cheerful sights and sounds to draw their gentle uses:

Hide the facts, the bitter facts, the foul, and fearful facts,

Tend the body well in hope, this were praise and wisdom:

But to plunge in gloom the parting soul, that hath loved its clay tenement so long,

This were vanity and folly, the counsel of moroseness and despair.

Not thus, the Scythian of old time welcomed Death with songs;

Not thus, the shrewd Egyptian decorated Death with braveries;

Not thus, on his funeral tower sleepeth the sun-worshipping Parsee;

Not thus, the Moslem saint lieth in his arabesque mausoleum;

Not thus, the wild red Indian, hunter of the far Missouri,

In flowering trees hath nested up his forest-loving ancestry;

Not thus, the Switzer mountaineer scattereth ribboned garlands

About the rustic cross that halloweth the bed of his beloved;

Not thus, the village maiden wisheth she may die in spring,

With store of violets and cowslips to be sprinkled on her snow-white shroud;

Not thus, the dying poet asketh a cheerful grave,—

Lay him in the sunshine, friends, nor sorrow that a Christian hath departed!

Yea; it is the poetry of Death, an Orpheus gladdening Hadës,

To care with mindful love for all so dear—and dead;

To think of them in hope, to look for them in joy, and—but for its simple vanity,—

To pray with all the earnestness of nature for souls who cannot change.

For the tree is felled, and boughed, and bare, and the Measurer standeth with His line;

The chance is gone for ever, and is past the reach of prayer:

For men and angels, good and ill, have rendered all their witness;

The trial is over, the jury are gone in, and none can now be heard;

Well are they agreed upon the verdict, just, and fixt, and final,

And the sentence showeth clear, before the Judge hath spoken:

Now,—while resting matter is at peace within the tomb,

The conscious spirit watcheth in unspeakable suspense;

Racked with a fearful looking-forward, or blissfully feeding on the foretaste,

Waiting souls in eager expectation pass the solemn interval:

They slumber not at death, but awaken, quickened to the terrors of the judgment;

They lie not insensate among darkness, but exult, looking forward to the light:

Idiotcy, brightening on the instant, when that veil is torn,

Is grateful that his torpor here hath left him as an innocent:

The young child, stricken as he played, and guileless babes unborn,

Freed from fetters of the flesh, burst into mind immediate:

Madness judgeth wisely, and the visions of the lunatic are gone,

And each hasteneth to praise the mercy that made him irresponsible.

For the soul is one, though manifold in act, working the machinery of brain,

Reason, fancy, conscience, passion, are but varying phases;

If, in God's wise purpose, the machine were shattered or confused,

Still is soul the same, though it exhibit with a difference:

Therefore, dissipate the brain, and set its inmate free,

Behold, the maniacs and embryos stand in their place intelligent.

That solvent eateth away all dross, leaving the gold intact:

Matter lingereth in the retort, spirit hath flown to the receiver:

And lo, that recipient of the spirits, it is some aerial world,

An oasis midway on the desert space, separating earth from heaven,

A prison-house for essences incorporate, a limbus vague and wide,

Tartarus for evil, and Paradise for good, that intermediate Hadës.

O Death, what art thou? a Lawgiver that never altereth,

Fixing the consummating seal, whereby the deeds of life become established:

O Death, what art thou? a stern and silent usher,

Leading to the judgment for Eternity, after the trial-scene of Time:

O Death, what art thou? an Husbandman, that reapeth always,

Out of season, as in season, with the sickle in his hand:

O Death, what art thou? the shadow unto every substance,

In the bower as in the battle, haunting night and day:

O Death, what art thou? Nurse of dreamless slumbers

Freshening the fevered flesh to a wakefulness eternal:

O Death, what art thou? strange and solemn Alchymist,

Elaborating life's elixir from these clayey crucibles:

O Death, what art thou? Antitype of Nature's marvels,

The seed and dormant chrysalis bursting into energy and glory.

Thou calm safe anchorage for the shattered hulls of men,—

Thou spot of gelid shade, after the hot-breathed desert,—

Thou silent waiting-hall, where Adam meeteth with his children,—

How full of dread, how full of hope, loometh inevitable Death:

Of dread, for all have sinned; of hope, for One hath saved;

The dread is drowned in joy, the hope is filled with immortality!

The terrors are but shadows now, that haunt the vale of Death.

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