Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume III. Sorrow and Consolation. 1904. | | | | V. Death and Bereavement | | Life | | Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825) |
| | “Animula, vagula, blandula.”
LIFE! I know not what thou art, | |
| But know that thou and I must part; | |
| And when, or how, or where we met | |
| I own to me ’s a secret yet. | |
| But this I know, when thou art fled, | 5 |
| Where’er they lay these limbs, this head, | |
| No clod so valueless shall be, | |
| As all that then remains of me. | |
| O, whither, whither dost thou fly, | |
| Where bend unseen thy trackless course, | 10 |
| And in this strange divorce, | |
| Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I? | |
| |
| To the vast ocean of empyreal flame, | |
| From whence thy essence came, | |
| Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed | 15 |
| From matter’s base uncumbering weed? | |
| Or dost thou, hid from sight, | |
| Wait, like some spell-bound knight, | |
| Through blank, oblivious years the appointed hour | |
| To break thy trance and reassume thy power? | 20 |
| Yet canst thou, without thought or feeling be? | |
| O, say what art thou, when no more thou ’rt thee? | |
| |
| Life! we ’ve been long together, | |
| Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; | |
| ’T is hard to part when friends are dear,— | 25 |
| Perhaps ’t will cost a sigh, a tear: | |
| Then steal away, give little warning, | |
| Choose thine own time; | |
| Say not Good Night,—but in some brighter clime | |
| Bid me Good Morning. | 30 | | | |
|
|
