Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KING DEATH, by ELIZA COOK



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KING DEATH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: King death has a high and lonely seat
Last Line: Than the tyrant king with his skeleton arm.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


King Death has a high and lonely seat,
As other monarchs have,
Draped with a pall and winding sheet,
Brought from the last-filled grave.
It is but of the gray and hollow skulls,
Of the cross-bones thick and strong,
And nothing lives there that seat to share
But the earth-worm trailing along.
And King Death sits on his spectral throne,
With his footstool made of churchyard stone.

King Death! King Death! thy voice is heard
In the sinking mariner's scream;
It comes ringing out in the sudden shout
Of the madman's fevered dream;
Now it breathes close in the pestilent air,
Till the noonday sun is dim --
Leaving the blot of the leper's spot
On the proud man's giant limb;
And the sage leaves his book, and the child his play,
When thou thinkest it fitting to call them away.

King Death has riches greater far
Than the merchant's stores unfold;
Though he valueth not the diamond star,
Nor heapeth up bright gold.
But he hath the young and beautiful
In his charnel caverns hid;
With the brain and the breast that we love the best
Shut fast 'neath the coffin lid.
And who with their treasures would not part
To purchase from death the good man's heart?

Low in the mouldering dust he has thrown
The dearest and rarest of things --
The patriot hero's laurel crown
And the poet's burning strings.
But he cannot make the green leaves fade,
Nor quench the immortal fire;
All else he may chill, but the wreath blooms still,
And a halo is round the lyre.
For the nobly-won trophy shall never decay,
And the songs of the gifted one pass not away.

King Death, oh! how thou must chuckle to find
The old man over his gold,
While he reckons the wealth he must leave benind,
With hands all palsied and cold!
Some heart will be sad when thou takest the bad,
Or sealest the reckless one's eyes;
For the tide that has thrown but the weed and the stone,
May hide pearls for the diver to prize;
But thy work, King Death, shall cause none to grieve
For the one who has naught but his gold to leave.

King Death! King Death! thou art strangely feared,
Yet the wisest cannot tell why;
For the woes we have here are sharp as thy spear,
And wring many a deeper sigh.
The happy and blest may dread thy name,
But though terrible thou mayst be,
The blighted heart and the brow of shame
Will eagerly fly to thee;
For the harsh world strikes with a wilder alarm
Than the tyrant King with his skeleton arm.





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