Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BEAUTIFUL DEATH, by STEPHEN PHILLIPS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BEAUTIFUL DEATH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why dreadest thou the calm process of death
Last Line: Industrious, happy, sweet, delicious, dead!
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


WHY dreadest thou the calm process of death?
To miss thy wife's illuminating smile?
No more to proudly touch thy child's bright hair?
To leave this glorying green, this flashing sun?
Yet Death is full of leisure, and of light;
Of compensations and of huge amends.
Since all the dead do for the living toil,
Assisting, bathing, in the air, the earth;
A shower their sympathy draws from the ground,
Delicious kindness from the soil exhaled.
Then thou, spendthrift of time, shalt busy be;
Thou shalt begin to foster and prepare.
O thou that within glaze and blinds didst live,
In blackness within windows bright absorbed,
Face to the surface swimming with drowned eyes!
Thou as a breeze shalt wander thro' the ward,
Balm to the sick, a cool and vagrant bliss:
To thee the tired faces shall incline,
Incline with closing eyes and open mouths.
Thou, dangerous to men, in prisons shut,
With life made irretrievable and dark.
Thou on the thirsty place shalt drop like dew,
Or like a cloud haste to the yearning land.
Thou maiden with the silent speckless ways,
On plant or creature squandering thy heart;
Thou in caresses large shalt spend thy life.
Conspiring with the summer plans of lovers, scent
From evening hedge the walk of boy and girl.
Thou merchant, or thou, clerk, hard driven, urged
For ever on bright iron, timed by bells,
Shalt mellow fruit in the serene noon air,
With rivulets of birds through fields of light,
Causing to fall the indolent misty peach.
Then thou, disturbed so oft, shalt make for peace;
Thou who didst injure, heal, and sew, and bless;
Thou who didst mar, shalt make for perfect health;
Thou, so unlucky, fall with fortunate rain.
And I to whom sweet life is dangerous edged,
With tenderness to madness near, with need
Even of a little dew, a drop of hope;
Disguised and starved, who dare not show my soul,
Who walk with bitten lip and clenched hands,
For me divine relief! To dare to trust
Each impulse, and to drive free and secure;
All my intention bland and prosperous!
The rose is at my silent coming rich;
I on my enemy's eyes like sleep shall drop,
And he at dawn shall bless me and shall drowse.
Blind shall I be and good, dumb and serene:
I shall not blame, nor question; I shall shine
Diffused and tolerant, luminous and large.
No longer shall I vex, but live my life
In solaces, caresses, and in balms,
Nocturnal soothings and nutritious sighs.
The unhappy mind an odour shall be breathed;
I shall be sagely blown, flung with design,
Assist this bland and universal scheme,
Industrious, happy, sweet, delicious, dead!





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