That tells me he is dying fast; the shadows of the night
Are passing from his saintly brow and sunken eye away,
But he looks beyond them and beholds a never-ending day.
Nay, wonder not that I am calm; the fleeting things of earth
Are passing with the flight of time, to their eternal birth:
I feel that death will shed on him a halo like the sun,
And I shall share it with him, when my pilgrimage is done.
How quickly fades the earthly frame, and with it too, how fast
The agony and sorrow of our mortal doom are past;
And when the sight of worldly wo weighs heavy on the breast,