Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEATH, by WILLIAM HAMMOND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEATH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sunk eyes, cold lips, chaps fall'n, cheeks pale and wan
Last Line: Will cause the mind betimes to loathe her cage.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


SUNK eyes, cold lips, chaps fall'n, cheeks pale and wan,
Are only bugbears falsely frighting man:
This is the vizard, not death's proper face;
For who looks through it with the eye of Grace,
Shall find Death deckt in so divine a ray,
That none would be such a self-foe to stay
In mortal clouds, did not the wiser hand
Of Supreme Power join, with his strict command,
Pangs in our dissolution, which all shun;
But would wish, if they knew life then begun.
Man is a creature mixt of heaven and earth;
Of beast and angel; when he leaves this breath,
He is all angel: the soul's future eye
Is by the prospect of eternity
Determin'd only: who content doth rest
With present good, no better is than beast.
The heathens prov'd, since the soul cannot find
In nature's store to satisfy the mind,
Her essence supernatural, and shall have
Her truest object not before the grave.
Could I surmise the immaterial mate
Of this dull flesh should languish after fate,
Like widowed turtles; or the glimmering light,
Bereav'd of her dark lanthorn, should be quite
Blown out by death; or dwell on faithless mire,
Inhospitable fens, like foolish fire
Wandering through dismal vales of horrid night;
Th' approach of death deservedly might fright.
But Faith's clear eye more certainly surveys
Than any optic organ; for the rays,
That show her object to us, are divine,
Reflected by th' omniscient Crystalline.
They then, who surely know death leadeth right
To a vast sea of ravishing delight,
Cannot, when he knocks at their earthen gate,
Suffer him storm his entrance, but dilate
Their ready hearts as to a friend, for now
He bears no sting, no horror in his brow;
The crystal-ruby stream, which did pursue
The spear that sluic't Christ's side, dyed his grim hue
To white and red, Beauty's complexion:
He comes no more to spoil thy mansion,
But to afford thee that inheritance,
Which cannot be conceiv'd without a trance;
To be translated to the fellowship
Of angels, there with an immortal lip
To drink Nectarean bowls of endless good,
Where the Creator's face is the soul's food.
The best condition is but to be
An elect spouse to that great Deity:
But death, the bride-maid, leads us to the bed,
Where youth and pleasures are eternized.
When I consider the whole world obeys
Creation's law; only untame man strays;
I cannot think this is the proper sphere,
Where all his actions move irregular;
Nor shall my wishes ever so exclude
The decent orderly vicissitude
Of Nature's constant harmony, to pray
For a harsh jarring by unruly stay.
These with the pains and shame of doating age
Will cause the mind betimes to loathe her cage.





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