In Death's Despite
WHITHER departs the perfume of the rose?
Into what life dies music’s golden sound?
Year after year life’s long procession goes
To hide itself beneath the senseless ground.
Upon the grave’s inexorable brink
Amazed with loss the human creature stands;
Vainly he strives to reason or to think,
Left with his aching heart and empty hands;
He calls his lost in vain. In sorrow drowned,
Darkness and silence all his sense confound.
Till in Death’s roll-call stern he hears his name,
In turn he follows and is lost to sight;
Though comforted by love and crowned by fame,
He hears the summons dread no man may slight.
Sweetly and clear upon his quiet grave
The birds shall sing, unmindful of his dust;
Softly in turn the long green grass shall wave
Over his fallen head. In turn he must
Submit to be forgotten, like the rest,
Though high the heart that beat within his breast.
The rose falls and the music’s sound is gone;
Dear voices cease, and clasp of loving hands;
Alone we stand when the brief day is done,
Searching with saddened eyes earth’s darkening lands.
Worthless as is the lightest fallen leaf
We seem, yet constant as the night’s first star
Kindles our deathless hope, and from our grief
Is born the trust no misery can mar,
That Love shall lift us all despair above,
Shall conquer death, —yea, Love, and only Love!
