C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Margaret Deland (1857–1945)

ALAS! that men must see

Love, before Death!

Else they content might be

With their short breath;

Aye, glad when the pale sun

Showed restless Day was done,

And endless Rest begun!

Glad when with strong, cool hand

Death clasped their own,

And with a strange command

Hushed every moan;

Glad to have finished pain

And labor wrought in vain,

Blurred by Sin’s deepening stain.

But Love’s insistent voice

Bids Self to flee:—

“Live that I may rejoice;

Live on for me!”

So, for Love’s cruel mind,

Men fear this Rest to find,

Nor know great Death is kind!