Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AND AFTER--WHAT?, by WILLIAM A. PHELON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AND AFTER--WHAT?, by                    
First Line: Twas omar said--and it was strangely true--
Last Line: The shrouding blackness does not finish all?
Variant Title(s): And After-what?
Subject(s): Death; Future Life; Heaven; Dead, The; Retribution; Eternity; After Life; Paradise


'TWAS Omar said—and it was strangely true—
Of those who passed the gates of Silence through
Not one returns to tell us of the road
Which in the future we must travel too.
And Omar's plaint is still the plaint of all
Who gaze upon a blank, unwindowed wall.

Deep, mystic studies long have dimmed the eyes,
And stored the minds of those whom men called wise.
Yet did those studies give the wise content,
Or vain desire to know what all things meant?

They speak of those "who dwell beyond the pale,"
Of those "who cannot see behind the veil"—
What is that Pale? And where is drawn its bound?
What is the Veil that wraps all wisdom round?

We dream and toil, and lift above the deep
Abyss our heads one instant—then we sleep.—
What price the toil and dreaming, if they yield
No certainty of an Elysian Field?

Cycle through cycle, men of every race
Have discoursed of the Soul's abiding place.
The heaven that each tribe expects to find
Is that best fitted to that nation's mind.
The Red Man dreams of boundless, billowy plain,
Where buffalo in multitudes are slain—
The Prophet's followers their hopes inspire
With hours, pleasuring each light desire.
Before the Christian ever is unrolled
The gleam of snowy wings and streets of gold.

And yet no Red Man from the bison track
Of his wild heaven to the tribe came back—
No janizary left the houri's kiss
To tell the Moslems of his glowing bliss—
Aye—and no Christian's winged, seraphic feet
Have left the gold to tread the earthlier street!
They go—they pass—and how are we to know
The form of Other World to which they go?
Go they at all—or, like an inky blot
Erased from life's bright page—they are—are not?

Through the long ages and their changing years
We seek to learn of things that none have known—
Something to soothe our ever-conscious fears,
Or justify a faith we do not own.

Fear, ever with us, ever thrusts its face
Between us and the vision of our souls—
What? Have we wasted all our well-spent lives
For Nothingness beyond the empty goals?

Oh, for some clew—for something tangible—
Some beacon-light upon the far-stretched plain—
Some evidence to prove to tortured minds
That life's work is not all in vain—in vain!

Must we believe that as the death-damp comes
This sentient spirit ends all—IS no more?
Then what the worth of life, if at the close
We pass to darkness through the silent door?

And yet, should we believe that life and light
Await the soul beyond the final flight,
And that the end of all comes not—that Death
Seals not the spirit in eternal night—
What proof have we? What truth has e'er been heard
Aside from raptured dreamers' eager word—
What proof that with the sable curtain's fall
The shrouding blackness does not finish all?





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net