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| | “Post tempestatem tranquillitas.” |
| Epitaph in Ely Cathedral. |
THEY lie, with upraised hands, and feet | |
| Stretched like dead feet that walk no more, | |
| And stony masks oft human sweet, | |
| As if the olden look each wore, | |
| Familiar curves of lip and eye, | 5 |
| Were wrought by some fond memory. | |
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| All waiting: the new-coffined dead, | |
| The handful of mere dust that lies | |
| Sarcophagused in stone and lead | |
| Under the weight of centuries: | 10 |
| Knight, cardinal, bishop, abbess mild, | |
| With last week’s buried year-old child. | |
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| After the tempest cometh peace, | |
| After long travail sweet repose; | |
| These folded palms, these feet that cease | 15 |
| From any motion, are but shows | |
| Of—what? What rest? How rest they? Where? | |
| The generations naught declare. | |
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| Dark grave, unto whose brink we come, | |
| Drawn nearer by all nights and days; | 20 |
| Each after each, thy solemn gloom | |
| We pierce with momentary gaze, | |
| Then go, unwilling or content, | |
| The way that all our fathers went. | |
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| Is there no voice or guiding hand | 25 |
| Arising from the awful void, | |
| To say, “Fear not the silent land; | |
| Would He make aught to be destroyed? | |
| Would He? or can He? What know we | |
| Of Him who is Infinity? | 30 |
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| Strong Love, which taught us human love, | |
| Helped us to follow through all spheres | |
| Some soul that did sweet dead lips move, | |
| Lived in dear eyes in smiles and tears,— | |
| Love, once so near our flesh allied | 35 |
| That “Jesus wept” when Lazarus died;— | |
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| Eagle-eyed Faith that can see God | |
| In worlds without and heart within; | |
| In sorrow by the smart o’ the rod, | |
| In guilt by the anguish of the sin; | 40 |
| In everything pure, holy, fair, | |
| God saying to man’s soul, “I am there”;— | |
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| These only, twin-archangels, stand | |
| Above the abyss of common doom, | |
| These only stretch the tender hand | 45 |
| To us descending to the tomb, | |
| Thus making it a bed of rest | |
| With spices and with odors drest. | |
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| So, like one weary and worn, who sinks | |
| To sleep beneath long faithful eyes, | 50 |
| Who asks no word of love, but drinks | |
| The silence which is paradise, | |
| We only cry, “Keep angelward, | |
| And give us good rest, O good Lord!” | |
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