Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ULTIMA SPES MORTUORUM, by HENRI MURGER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ULTIMA SPES MORTUORUM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The bells will ring to-morrow for the day
Last Line: And, by the living spurned, deludes the dead!
Subject(s): Death; Future Life; Dead, The; Retribution; Eternity; After Life


I.

The bells will ring to-morrow for the day
Held sacred to the Dead,
And those who slumber in their shrouds of clay
Will quit their narrow bed.

Then shades invisible to mortal eye,
Arising from the tomb,
Will flit beneath the sycamores that sigh
Amid funereal gloom

Chilled by the breeze those shivering phantoms stray,
While Heaven is dark above,
And still by hope inspirited they say.
"We wait for those we love:

"Their warm true hearts our absence still deplore,
"And soon in dark array,
"A pilgrim band, our cherished friends of yore,
"Above each cross will pray.

"And they will offer to our memory true
"Affection's simple boon:
"Kind hands immortelles on each mound will strew,
"That fade alas—so soon!"

II.

Why from your cerements shake the dust away?
Why come to tremble 'neath our misty skies?
What sound disturbed within your beds of clay
The slumberous calm that weighed upon your eyes?

Shades of the Dead! ye viewless spectres! tell—
Why cross the threshold of the earth again?
What hope ye from this world wherein we dwell,
Since in your grave-clothes still ye hope in vain?

Ye come, your confidence in man to test,
And ye will carry back into your bed
The sad conviction, bitterly confess'd,
That from oblivion nought can save the Dead.

III.

The De Profundis pealed its solemn tones,
And the good man of God
Prayed, while the sexton hid your coffined bones
Beneath the hallowed sod;

Parents and sisters, friends and lovers, all
Whom at the final hour
Your dying lips had kissed, were round the pall
Regretful tears to shower;

And all, when blessings with your latest breath
To each in turn were given,
While ye were waiting for the call of Death
To wing your flight to Heaven—

All fondly promised, weeping in despair,
That from each faithful heart,
Your memories, sanctified by daily prayer,
Should never more depart!

Come then, to-day—your prison portals ope,
Your resting places leave:
Eternal victims of eternal hope,
Come—wait in vain, till eve!

IV.

The ghosts are flitting restlessly
Beneath the cypress trees:
They list—'tis nothing but the sigh
Of some autumnal breeze;

But still those phantoms list each sound
That breathes the lonely walks around.
Long, but in vain, they wait to hear
The tread of human footstep near,
Then shedding bitter tears of sorrow,
They whisper, "They will come to-morrow."

Lord! Thou well knowest that they will not come,
And that those hapless ghosts will oft return
To seek some simple offering at their tomb,
For which they vainly evermore will yearn:

To Thee the cruel irony is known!
Whatever dies is soon Oblivion's prey,
And tears that answered every dying groan
E'en at the grave are calmly wiped away.

Lord! Thou dost know that o'er the world to-day
The love of Self triumphantly doth reign,
That should this curse defer some souls to slay,
Sooner or later they must still be slain.

Lord! Thou well knowest that the human race
Is sick at heart and weary to the death,
Pursuing Hope in everlasting chase,
Until we murmur with our dying breath,—

"At last we greet the silence of repose,
"Blue sky or black—to us it matters not—
"Calmly we slumber, disregarding woes,
"Expecting nought, for all is now forgot."

And yet, oh mockery! the rest we crave
Is still disturbed within our final bed:
Hope, faithless spectre, penetrates the grave
And, by the living spurned, deludes the dead!





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