Archibald Lampman (1861–1899)

I LIKE to stretch full-length upon my bed,

Sometimes, when I am weary body and mind,

And think that I shall some day lie thus, blind

And cold, and motionless, my last word said.

How grim it were, how piteous to be dead!

And yet how sweet, to hear no more, nor see,

Sleeping, past care, through all eternity,

With clay for pillow to the clay-cold head.

And I should seem so absent, so serene:

They who should see me in that hour would ask

What spirit, or what fire, could ever have been

Within that yellow and discoloured mask;

For there seems life in lead, or in a stone,

But in a soul’s deserted dwelling none.