Classic and Contemporary Poetry
DEATH, by MALTBIE DAVENPORT BABCOCK Poet's Biography First Line: Why be afraid of death, as though your life were breath? Last Line: And work, nor care to rest, and find the last the best. Variant Title(s): Emancipation Subject(s): Death; Heaven; Religion; Dead, The; Paradise; Theology | ||||||||
Why be afraid of death, as though your life were breath? Death but anoints your eyes with clay. O glad surprise! Why should you be forlorn? Death only husks the corn. Why should you fear to meet the thresher of the wheat? Is sleep a thing to dread? Yet sleeping you are dead Till you awake and rise, here, or beyond the skies. Why should it be a wrench to leave your wooden bench? Why not, with happy shout, run home when school is out? The dear ones left behind? Oh, foolish one and blind! A day and you will meeta night and you will greet. This is the death of death, to breathe away a breath And know the end of strife, and taste the deathless life, And joy without a fear, and smile without a tear; And work, nor care to rest, and find the last the best. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MYSTIC BOUNCE by TERRANCE HAYES MATHEMATICS CONSIDERED AS A VICE by ANTHONY HECHT UNHOLY SONNET 11 by MARK JARMAN SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE COMING OF THE PLAGUE by WELDON KEES A LITHUANIAN ELEGY by ROBERT KELLY BE STRONG by MALTBIE DAVENPORT BABCOCK |
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