The Dream Of The World Without Death
NOW, sitting by her side, worn out with weeping,
Behold, I fell to sleep, and had a vision,
Wherein I heard a wondrous Voice intoning:
Crying aloud, “The Master on His throne
Openeth now the seventh seal of wonder,
And beckoneth back the angel men name Death.
“And at His feet the mighty Angel kneeleth,
Breathing not; and the Lord doth look upon him,
Saying, ‘Thy wanderings on earth are ended.’
“And lo! the mighty Shadow sitteth idle
Even at the silver gates of heaven,
Drowsily looking in on quiet waters,
And puts his silence among men no longer.”
The world was very quiet. Men in traffic
Cast looks over their shoulders; pallid seamen
Shiver’d to walk upon the decks alone;
And women barr’d their doors with bars of iron,
In the silence of the night; and at the sunrise
Trembled behind the husbandmen afield.
I could not see a kirkyard near or far;
I thirsted for a green grave, and my vision
Was weary for the white gleam of a tombstone.
But harkening dumbly, ever and anon
I heard a cry out of a human dwelling,
And felt the cold wind of a lost one’s going.
One struck a brother fiercely, and he fell,
And faded in a darkness; and that other
Tore his hair, and was afraid, and could not perish.
One struck his aged mother on the mouth,
And she vanish’d with a gray grief from his hearthstone.
One melted from her bairn, and on the ground
With sweet unconscious eyes the bairn lay smiling.
And many made a weeping among mountains,
And hid themselves in caverns, and were drunken.
I heard a voice from out the beauteous earth,
Whose side roll’d up from winter into summer,
Crying, “I am grievous for my children.”
I heard a voice from out the hoary ocean,
[...] Read more
poem by William Cosmo Monkhouse
Added by Poetry Lover
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