———
EMANCIPATION
Why be afraid of Death as though your life were breath!
Death but anoints your eyes with clay. O glad surprise!
Why should you be forlorn? Death only husks the corn.
Why should you fear to meet the thresher of the wheat?
Is sleep a thing to dread? Yet sleeping, you are dead
Till you awake and rise, here, or beyond the skies.
Why should it be a wrench to leave your wooden bench,