Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LIFE AND DEATH, by JAMES HERVEY HYSLOP Poet's Biography First Line: We come into the noisy world Last Line: The distant purposes of god. Subject(s): Death; God; Life; Love; Peace; Dead, The | ||||||||
WE come into the noisy world Without our choice and ignorant Of all its sorrows and its sin: But happy on our mother's breast, We take its nourishment and feel Its soft and pliant touch, and glow With infant love, the keenest sense Of pleasure and of helplessness. The pangs of hunger and the joy Of sating it are all we feel, Not knowing then, in innocence, Of hope or after fate of soul: But sucklings feeling joy and pain; No knowledge of their meaning now Or purpose in the hands of God. The tender mind in slumber waits The day when consciousness awakes And infancy begins to merge Into the happy days of youth, When growing freedom marks the joy Of passion in our work or play. No duties yet obtrude, restrain, Or rob our lives of pleasure keen, But cheerily we live ablaze With liberty and wanton joy, Until the call of manhood's age And love doth give a sober touch To wilding passions glowing there, And turns them into happiness The prize of life, of home and God. And then, with sudden bound, comes death, The reaper pale, whose ruthless blade Now cuts the cords of love and life, And leaves behind the withered leaves Of fortune and of happiness. The joys of life were in the place Of hope and immortality: No thought of bliss beyond the grave Was wanted there, and heaven filled The passing moments with its prize: But when the pall of cruel death Falls o'er the happy sunny days, Men's bleeding hearts will wistful gaze Into eternity for hope And find therein the peace of God. 'Tis not for self we feel the glow Of passion for continued life, But love for those whose passage mars The growth of soul and all its aims. For death, in his remorseless path, Leaves here no evidence for hope, And we must seek its guerdon there Where chance may bring a cheering word From out the gates of grief and pain. But when we bridge the sombre gulf Twixt life and death, and learn that love Still waits upon the shining shores Of time and fate to meet us there, We watch forever and forever The distant purposes of God. | 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 |
|