“You hesitate? Still hesitate?
Stand silent still and mock my pain?
Still mock to see me wait and wait,
And wait her love, as earth waits rain?”
V.
O broken ship! O starless shore!
O black and everlasting night,
Where love comes never any more
To light man’s way with heaven’s light.
A godless man with bags of gold
I think a most unholy sight;
Ah, who so desolate at night
Amid death’s sleepers still and cold?
A godless man on holy ground
I think a most unholy sight.
I hear death trailing like a hound
Hard after him, and swift to bite.
VI.
The vast moon settles to the west:
Two men beside a nameless tomb,
And one would sit thereon to rest,—
Ay, rest below, if there were room.
What is this rest of death, sweet friend?
What is the rising up,—and where?
I say, death is a lengthened prayer,
A longer night, a larger end.
Hear you the lesson I once learned:
I died; I sailed a million miles
Through dreamful, flowery, restful isles,—
She was not there, and I returned.
I say the shores of death and sleep
Are one; that when we, wearied, come
To Lethe’s waters, and lie dumb,
’T is death, not sleep, holds us to keep.