Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYMN TO DEATH, by WILLIAM HERBERT (1778-1847)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HYMN TO DEATH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What art thou, o relentless visitant
Last Line: After his likeness, and be satisfied.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


WHAT art thou, O relentless visitant,
Who with an earlier or later call,
Dost summon every spirit that abides
In this our fleshly tabernacle! Death!
The end of worldly sorrowing and joy,
That breakest short the fantasies of youth,
The proud man's glory, and the lingering chain
Of hopeless destitution! The dark gate
And entrance into that untrodden realm,
Where we must all hereafter pass! Art thou
An evil or a boon? that some shrink back
With shuddering horror from the dreaded range
Of thine unmeasured empire, others plunge
Unbidden, goaded by the sense of ill,
Or weariness of being, into the abyss!
And should we call those blest who journey on
Upon this motley theatre, through life
Successful, unto the allotted term
Of threescore years and ten, even so strong,
That they exceed it? or those, who are brought down
Before their prime, and, like the winged tribes,
Ephemeral, children of the vernal beam,
Just flutter round the sweets of life and die? --
An awful term thou art; and still must be,
To all who journey to that bourne, from whence
Return is none, and from whose distant shore
No rumor has come back of good or ill,
Save to the faithful, and even they but view
Obscurely things unknown and unconceived,
And judge not even, by what sense the bliss,
Which they imagine, shall hereafter be
Enjoy'd or apprehended. And shall man
Unbidden rush on that mysterious change,
Which, whether he believe or mock the creed
Of those who trust, awaits him, and must bring
Or good, or evil, or annihilate
The sense of being, and involve him quite
In darkness upon which no dawn shall break! --
Fearful and dreaded must thy bidding be
To such as have no light within, vouchsafed
From the Most High, no reason for their hope;
But go from this firm world, into the void
Where no material body may reside,
By fleshly cares polluted and unmeet
For spiritual joy; and ne'er have known,
Or knowing, have behind them cast the love
Of their Redeemer, who thine awful bonds,
Grim Potentate, has broken, and made smooth
The deathbed of the just through faith in Him.
How oft, at midnight, have I fix'd my gaze
Upon the blue unclouded firmament,
With thousand spheres illumined, each perchance
The powerful centre of revolving worlds!
Until, by strange excitement stirr'd, the mind
Has long'd for dissolution, so it might bring
Knowledge, for which the spirit is athirst,
Open the darkling stores of hidden time,
And show the marvel of eternal things,
Which, in the bosom of immensity,
Wheel round the God of Nature. Vain desire!
Illusive aspirations! daring hope!
Worm that I am, who told me I should know
More than is needful, or hereafter dive
Into the counsel of the God of worlds?
Or ever, in the cycle unconceived
Of wonderous eternity, arrive
Beyond the narrow sphere, by Him assign'd
To be my dwelling wheresoe'er? Enough
To work in trembling my salvation here,
Waiting thy summons, stern, mysterious Power,
Who to thy silent realm hast call'd away
All those whom nature twined around my breast
In my fond infancy, and left me here
Denuded of their love! Where are ye gone,
And shall we wake from the long sleep of death,
To know each other, conscious of the ties
That link'd our souls together, and draw down
The secret dew-drop on my cheek, whene'er
I turn unto the past? or will the change
That comes to all, renew the alter'd spirit
To other thoughts, making the strife or love
Of short mortality a shadow past,
Equal illusion? Father, whose strong mind
Was my support, whose kindness as the spring
Which never tarries! Mother, of all forms
That smiled upon my budding thoughts most dear!
Brothers! and thou, mine only sister! gone
To the still grave, making the memory
Of all my earliest time, a thing wiped out,
Save from the glowing spot, which lives as fresh
In my heart's core, as when we last in joy
Were gather'd round the blithe paternal board!
Where are ye? Must your kindred spirits sleep
For many a thousand years, till by the trump
Roused to new being? Will affections then
Burn inwardly, or all our loves gone by
Seem but a speck upon the roll of time,
Unworthy our regard? -- This is too hard
For mortals to unravel, nor has He
Vouchsafed a clue to man, who bade us trust
To Him our weakness, and we shall wake up
After his likeness, and be satisfied.





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