Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PANTHEIST'S SONG OF IMMORTALITY, by CONSTANCE CAROLINE WOODHILL NADEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PANTHEIST'S SONG OF IMMORTALITY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Bring snow-white lilies, pallid heart-flushed roses
Last Line: One with the essence of the boundless world.
Subject(s): Pantheism


BRING snow-white lilies, pallid heart-flushed roses,
Enwreath her brow with heavy-scented flowers;
In soft undreaming sleep her head reposes,
While, unregretted, pass the sunlit hours.

Few sorrows did she know -- and all are over;
A thousand joys -- but they are all forgot:
Her life was one fair dream of friend and lover;
And they were false -- ah, well, she knows it not.

Look in her face, and lose thy dread of dying;
Weep not, that rest will come, that toil will cease:
Is it not well, to lie as she is lying,
In utter silence, and in perfect peace?

Canst thou repine that sentient days are numbered?
Death is unconscious Life, that waits for birth:
So didst thou live, while yet thy embryo slumbered,
Senseless, unbreathing, e'en as heaven and earth.

Then shrink no more from Death, though Life be gladness,
Nor seek him, restless in thy lonely pain:
The law of joy ordains each hour of sadness,
And firm or frail, thou canst not live in vain.

What though thy name by no sad lips be spoken,
And no fond heart shall keep thy memory green?
Thou yet shalt leave thine own enduring token,
For earth is not as though thou ne'er hadst been.

See yon broad current, hasting to the ocean,
Its ripples glorious in the western red:
Each wavelet passes, trackless; yet its motion
Has changed for evermore the river bed.

Ah, wherefore weep, although the form and fashion
Of what thou seemest, fades like sunset flame?
The uncreated Source of toil and passion,
Through everlasting change abides the same.

Yes, thou shalt die: but these almighty forces,
That meet to form thee, live for evermore:
They hold the suns in their eternal courses,
And shape the tiny sand-grains on the shore.

Be calmly glad, thine own true kindred seeing
In fire and storm, in flowers with dew impearled;
Rejoice in thine imperishable being,
One with the Essence of the boundless world.






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