649. Death

IT is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,	5
And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapp’d in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this—but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves	10
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft—and when grass waves
Over the pass’d-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.