POET: Can we not, also, partake of Death's dignity?
TRUTH: As chickens run about, bewildered, ^ Frightened by the shadow of an eagle ; So the poor are distracted by the overhanging pall of
Death. At the foot of the paltry pallet of the Poor Sits an ugly monster, mowing and grimacing. Holding up to the dying, a pauper's coffin. They possess not themselves, even in death.
POET: But the wild men of this wilderness Take Death by the hand as they take Life by the hand, Without mouthing, or vain conceit. They chant their sorrow a little while, Drumming upon the hollow-sounding parchment, Stretched upon a hoop, to fright away evil ; Then they pile stones above the sleeper, And pass on into the secret places of the Desert.
I have stood with the soldiers. Face to face with the great Mother, And have wrapped the dead in their blankets. For the long repose. The Dawn was our celebrant; The larks, our choir ; The mists of the Morning, incense. We left them to their slumber.
These return unto the mother simply as the fall of a tree, but the burials of civilization are ugly.
TRUTH: What of fire, firstling of Creation? Type of the soul ; The great purifier ; Not devouring, but transmuting.
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