Shutting behind it Death’s mysterious door,
And shaking off with strange, resistless might
The dust that once it wore.
So swift its flight, so suddenly it sped—
As when by skillful hand a bow is bent
The arrow flies—those watching round the bed
Marked not the way it went.
Through the clear silence of the moonless dark,
Leaving no footprint of the road it trod,
Straight as an arrow cleaving to its mark,