Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/257

Was there no life there that man's brain could understand?
No past, no future, hopes to come, in that strange land?
No human love, no sleep, no day, no night,
But ever eternal living in eternal light?

Perhaps the soul thus springing to fill its grave,
Found all the peace and happiness that it could crave;
All it had lost alone was that poor body's part
Which naught but grey corruption saw for its chart.

Ah well! for us there ended all one man's life with this—
A shot, a cry, a struggle, and a fainting woman's kiss;
Life's blood let 'mid the grasses—and all a world was lost,
And no one may ever know how he paid the cost.

He is lost in the crowd of the dead, in the night-time of death,
A name on a stone left to tell that he ever drew breath.
So desperate body die there, with your soul's long release,
And, unhappy spirit, God grant you Eternity's peace!