Poems (Whitney)/Epitaph
For works with similar titles, see Epitaph.
EPITAPH
INSCRIBED TO RICHARD, WHO LOVES NOT THE SUBJECT.
Here lies,(Speak softly,) one who dropped awayAs a ripe berry from the spray;She ended nine lives in a day.
Just at the sunset, as a sparkWinked by the firelight, did her barkPut forth into the unknown dark.
She had no kin to stay her breath;As lonely traveller hasteneth,She swam for life the moat of death.
All musings of the fireside born,All love, all fear of hate and scorn,The rose of life and its sharp thorn,
These have exhaled; in dumbest show'Twas willed the curious life should blow,And, having blossomed, should pass so.
Ah, not unkindly does the graveShut out earth's sunlight, if it haveThe power to ripen and to save,
But you, O cat of many years,When the inevitable shearsCut off your thread of hopes and fears,
Tell us, what hope could love supply?What page of drear philosophyWould say thou didst not vainly die?
"As the beast dieth," holy writRemorselessly hath worded it,And so constrains our feeble wit.
Poor beasts! in mild Chaldaic lore,When shepherds watched on starlit moor,Your destiny was not so poor.
Great Nature to her open feastGave welcome wide, the highest guestHad common birthright with the least.
To live to die! it could not be;Birthright was immortality:Yea, what was born could never die.
Alas, what better faith have we?What light of heaven shines tenderlyOn this dark web of mystery?
What shall we say of what was here?A thing that held its life as dearAs one of us, in hope and fear.
Dumbly it asked for human care;A little love, that it might bearThe ills and pains it could not share;
Some patience for misdoings small;For dulness, ignorance, and allThat made it a dependent thrall
On human kind. Perhaps not dumb,(Nay, Richard!) in new guise shall comeInto the spirit's older home,
This poor dependent of our hearth,Linked with old scenes of peace and mirth,Or cruelty, and pain, and the bleak earth.