FROM UNBELIEF TO BELIEF.

Why come ye here to sigh that I,

Who with crossed wrists so peaceless lie

Before ye, am at rest, at rest!

For that the pistons of my blood

No more in this machinery thud?

And on these eyes, that once were blest

With magnetism of fire, are prest

Thin, damp, pale eyelids for a sheath,

Whereon the bony claw of Death

Hath set his coins of unseen lead,

Stamped with the image of his head?

Why come ye here to weep for one,

Who is forgotten when he's gone

From ye and burthened with this rest

Your God hath given him! unsought

Of any prayers, whiles yet he wrought,—

And with what sacrifices bought!

Low, sweet communion mouth to mouth

Of thoughts that dewed eternal drought

Of Life's bald barrenness,— a jest,

An irony hath grown confessed

When he's at rest! when he's at rest!

Why come ye, fools!— ye lie! ye lie!

Rashly! the grave, for such as I,

Hath naught that lies as near this rest

As your high Heaven lies near your Hell!

I see why now that it is well

That men but know the husk-like shell,

Which like a fruit the being kept,

That swinked and sported, woke and slept;

From which that stern essential stept,

That ichor-veined inhabitant

Who makes me all myself, in all

My moods the “I” original,

That holds one orbit like a star,

Distinct, to which a similar

There never was, and be there can n't.

And as it is, it is the best

That Death hath my poor body dressed

In such fair semblance of a rest,

Which soothes the hearts of those distressed;

But, God! unto the dead the jest

Of this his rest, of this his rest!