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[First published 1867.]
I ASK not that my bed of death | |
| From bands of greedy heirs be free; | |
| For these besiege the latest breath | |
| Of fortune’s favour’d sons, not me. | |
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| I ask not each kind soul to keep | 5 |
| Tearless, when of my death he hears; | |
| Let those who will, if any, weep! | |
| There are worse plagues on earth than tears. | |
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| I ask but that my death may find | |
| The freedom to my life denied; | 10 |
| Ask but the folly of mankind, | |
| Then, then at last, to quit my side. | |
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| Spare me the whispering, crowded room, | |
| The friends who come, and gape, and go; | |
| The ceremonious air of gloom— | 15 |
| All, that makes death a hideous show! | |
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| Nor bring, to see me cease to live, | |
| Some doctor full of phrase and fame, | |
| To shake his sapient head and give | |
| The ill he cannot cure a name. | 20 |
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| Nor fetch, to take the accustom’d toll | |
| Of the poor sinner bound for death, | |
| His brother doctor of the soul, | |
| To canvass with official breath | |
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| The future and its viewless things— | 25 |
| That undiscover’d mystery | |
| Which one who feels death’s winnowing wings | |
| Must needs read clearer, sure, than he! | |
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| Bring none of these! but let me be, | |
| While all around in silence lies, | 30 |
| Moved to the window near, and see | |
| Once more before my dying eyes | |
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| Bathed in the sacred dews of morn | |
| The wide aërial landscape spread— | |
| The world which was ere I was born, | 35 |
| The world which lasts when I am dead. | |
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| Which never was the friend of one, | |
| Nor promised love it could not give, | |
| But lit for all its generous sun, | |
| And lived itself, and made us live. | 40 |
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| There let me gaze, till I become | |
| In soul with what I gaze on wed! | |
| To feel the universe my home; | |
| To have before my mind—instead | |
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| Of the sick-room, the mortal strife, | 45 |
| The turmoil for a little breath— | |
| The pure eternal course of life, | |
| Not human combatings with death. | |
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| Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow | |
| Compos’d, refresh’d, ennobled, clear; | 50 |
| Then willing let my spirit go | |
| To work or wait elsewhere or here! | |
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