Death

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 sprite

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 graves

In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go

 So duly and so oft—and when grass waves

Over the pass’d-away, there may be then

No resurrection in the minds of men.