An Answer
‘CAN it be good to die?’ you question, friend;
‘Can it be good to die, and move along
Still circling round and round, unknowing end,
Still circling round and round amid the throng
Of golden orbs attended by their moons–
To catch the intonation of their song
As on they flash, and scatter nights, and noons,
To worlds like ours, where things like us belong?’
To me ’tis idle saying, ‘He is dead.’
Or, 'Now he sleepeth and shall wake no more;
The little flickering, fluttering life is fled,
Forever fled, and all that was is o’er.’
I have a faith–that life and death are one,
That each depends upon the self-same thread,
And that the seen and unseen rivers run
To one calm sea, from one clear fountain head.
I have a faith–that man’s most potent mind
May cross the willow-shaded stream nor sink;
I have a faith–when he has left behind
His earthly vesture on the river’s brink,
When all his little fears are torn away,
His soul may beat a pathway through the tide,
And, disencumbered of its coward-clay,
Emerge immortal on the sunnier side.
So, say:–It must be good to die, my friend!
It must be good and more than good, I deem;
’Tis all the replication I may send–
For deeper swimming seek a deeper stream.
It must be good or reason is a cheat,
It must be good or life is all a lie,
It must be good and more then living sweet,
It must be good–or man would never die.
