LINES TO DEATH.
How vain is human strength to flee,
Thou mighty One! from thee!
Thou hid’st the scenes that lie the grave beyond—
Thou hast the secrets of the world unseen;
Where the loved ones, the beautiful, the fond,
And all who tossed on life’s wild sea have been,
Have gone in silence at thy dreadful call,
Great conqueror of all!
Empires are crumbled at thy dread command,
And nations rise and nourish but to fall;
Even earth is thine; and thou e’er long shalt stand,
And mark its wealth, and power, and beauty, all
Fade and depart as sunbeams in the heaven
Vanish and die at even!
The midnight storm, the tempest raging high,
The sweeping pestilence, and fell disease,
Rude winter’s blast, and balmy summer’s sigh,
Earth, and the sea whose murmurs never cease,
All are but agents of thy sovereign will,
Thy bidding to fulfil.
Couldst thou to man’s earth-fettered soul reveal
The bliss thou bringest to the pure in heart,
Would sudden horror o’er his spirit steal,
When called at last with low-born joys to part?
Would he not rather sigh for that bless’d shore,
Where death is known no more?
Stern Power! though others shudder at thy tread,
And vainly seek thy arrow to evade,
Before thy stroke I fain would bow my head,
Nor grieve to see my transient pleasures fade:
In thy embrace my sorrows all shall cease,
For in the grave is peace!
H. C.