Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE TIME TO DIE, by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I heard a stranger's hearse move heavily Last Line: To some convenient hour, the time to die. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The | ||||||||
There is a time to die. KING SOLOMON. I HEARD a stranger's hearse move heavily Along the pavement. Its deep gloomy pall No hand of kindred or of friend upbore. But from the cloud, that veiled his western couch, The lingering sun shed forth one transient ray, Like sad and tender farewell to some plant Which he had nourished. On the giddy crowd Went dancing in their own enchanted maze, Drowning the echo of those tardy wheels Which hoarsely warn'd them of a time to die. I saw a sable train in sorrow bend Around a tomb. -- There was a stifled sob, And now and then a pearly tear fell down Upon the tangled grass. -- But then there came The damp clod harshly on the coffin lid, Curdling the life blood at the mourner's heart, While audibly it spake to every ear "There is a time to die." And then it seemed As if from every mound and sepulchre In that lone cemetery -- from the sward Where slept the span-long infant -- to the grave Of him who dandled on his wearied knee Three generations -- from the turf that veil'd The wreck of mouldering beauty, to the bed Where shrank the loathed beggar -- rose a cry From all those habitants of silence -- "Yea! -- There is a time to die." Methought that truth, In every tongue, and dialect, and tone, Peal'd o'er each region of the rolling globe; The simoon breathed it, and the earthquake groap'd A hollow, deep response -- the avalanche Wrote it in terror on a snowy scroll -- The red volcano belch'd it forth in flames -- Old Ocean bore it on his whelming surge, And you, pure, broad, cerulean arch grew dark, With death's eternal darts. -- But joyous Man, To whom kind heaven the ceaseless warning sent, Turn'd to his phantom pleasures, and deferr'd, To some convenient hour, the time to die. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND COLUMBUS [JANUARY, 1487] by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY |
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