@3FEAR? Yes@1 . . . I heard you saying In an Oxford common-room Where the hearth-light's kindly raying Stript the empanelled walls of gloom, Silver groves of candles playing In the soft wine turned to bloom -- At the word I see you now Blandly push the wine-boat's prow Round the mirror of that scored Yellow old mahogany board -- @3I confess to one fear; this, To be buried alive!@1 My Lord, Your fancy has played amiss. Fear not. When in farewell While guns toll like a bell And the bell tolls like a gun Westminster towers call Folk and state to your funeral, And robed in honours won, Beneath the cloudy pall Of the lifted shreds of glory You lie in the last stall Of that gray dormitory -- Fear not lest mad mischance Should find you lapt and shrouded Alive in helpless trance Though seeming death-beclouded: For long ere so you rest On that transcendent bier Shall we not have addressed One summons, one last test, To your reluctant ear? O believe it! we shall have uttered In ultimate entreaty A name your soul would hear Howsoever thickly shuttered; We shall have stooped and muttered @3England!@1 in your cold ear . . . Then, if your great pulse leap No more, nor your cheek burn, Enough; then shall we learn 'Tis time for us to weep. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INTOXICATION by EMILY DICKINSON LOVE'S ARROW POISONED by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES ON A SMALL DOG by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. THE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTER by EDWARD CARPENTER PERSIAN [ORIENTAL] ECLOGUES: 1. SELIM; OR, SHEPHERD'S MORAL by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) TO THE MEMORY OF MY WORTHY FRIEND, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE by CHARLES COTTON ON A FOUL [OR, FOULE] MORNING [BEING THEN TO TAKE A JOURNEY] by RICHARD CRASHAW |