Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (18331908). An American Anthology, 17871900. 1900. |
|
1427. Life and Death |
| By Lilla Cabot Perry |
|
|
O YE who see with other eyes than ours, | |
And speak with tongues we are too deaf to hear, | |
Whose touch we cannot feel yet know ye near, | |
When, with a sense of yet undreamed-of powers, | |
We sudden pierce the cloud of sense that lowers, | 5 |
Enwrapping us as t were our spirits tomb, | |
And catch some sudden glory through the gloom, | |
As Arctic sufferers dream of sun and flowers! | |
Do ye not sometimes long for power to speak | |
To our dull ears, and pierce their should of clay | 10 |
With a loud cry, Why, then, this grief at death? | |
We are the living, you the dead to-day! | |
This truth you soon shall see, dear hearts, yet weak, | |
In Gods bright mirror cleared from mortal breath! | |
|
|
|
|