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

The Death of the Poor

THIS is death the consoler—death that bids live again;

Here life its aim: here is our hope to be found,

Making, like magic elixir, our poor weak heads to swim round,

And giving us heart for the struggle till night makes end of the pain.

Athwart the hurricane—athwart the snow and the sleet,

Afar there twinkles over the black earth’s waste,

The light of the Scriptural inn where the weary and the faint may taste

The sweets of welcome, the plenteous feast and the secure retreat.

It is an angel, in whose soothing palms

Are held the boon of sleep and dreamy balms,

Who makes a bed for poor unclothèd men;

It is the pride of the gods—the all-mysterious room,

The pauper’s purse—this fatherland of gloom,

The open gate to heaven, and heavens beyond our ken.