Poems (Jackson)/"Dropped Dead"
"DROPPED DEAD."
LL, royal strengths in life, until the end,Will bear themselves still royally. Degrees
Of dying they know not: the muddy lees
They will not drink: no man shall see them bend
Or slacken in the storm: no man can lend
To them. Those feeble souls who crouch on knees
That fail, and cling to shadows of lost ease,
Death tortures. But, as kings to kings may send,
He challenges the strong.
Such death as this
O'ertakes great love; a lesser love will miss
Such stroke; may dwindle painfully away,
And fade, and simply cease to breathe, some day.
But great loves, to the last, have pulses red;
All great loves that have ever died dropped dead.