It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal
Be lapp’d in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this—but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft—and when grass
Over the pass’d-away, there may be
No resurrection in the minds of men.
