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...SONNET TO GEORGE SAND: 1. A RECOGNITION by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE INDIAN EMPEROR: SONG by JOHN DRYDEN FOUR QUARTETS: BURNT NORTON by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT LINES WRITTEN TO HIS WIFE [WHILE ON A VISIT TO UPPER INDIA] by REGINALD HEBER A DIRGE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE TWO TREES by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS TIPPERARY: 4. BY OUR OWN A. E. HOUSMAN by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |