Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEATH AND LIFE, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEATH AND LIFE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Still the heart and stay the breath
Last Line: Just for you and just for me.
Subject(s): Life


Still the heart and stay the breath --
There's a deeper death than death!
This is death, when living soul
Yields to deadly sin's control;
When, beneath the devil's arts,
Love, the light of life, departs;
When the body, moving still,
Bears about a lifeless will,
And the spirit, formed to rise
Ever-growing in the skies,
Is a dead and empty seed:
This, ah, this is death indeed!

Rich the years, with fruitage rife --
There's a higher life than life!
This is life, when spirits press
Into every nobleness;
When on failure and defeat
Power sets his lordly seat;
When, although the body fail,
Spirit energies prevail,
And the world beholds a man
After the Creator's plan,
Soul from all its bondage freed;
This, ah, this is life indeed!

Hear the resurrection cry:
Dying, yet you shall not die!
Christ is He that conquereth
All this deeper death than death;
Christ, from out of mortal strife,
Won this higher life than life --
Wins it through eternity,
Just for you and just for me.





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