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Title: From Unbelief To Belief
Author: Madison Julius Cawein [
More Titles by Cawein]
Why come ye here to sigh that I,
Who with crossed wrists so peaceless lie
Before ye, am at rest, at rest!
For that the pistons of my blood
No more in this machinery thud?
And on these eyes, that once were blest
With magnetism of fire, are prest
Thin, damp, pale eyelids for a sheath,
Whereon the bony claw of Death
Hath set his coins of unseen lead,
Stamped with the image of his head?
Why come ye here to weep for one,
Who is forgotten when he's gone
From ye and burthened with this rest
Your God hath given him! unsought
Of any prayers, whiles yet he wrought,--
And with what sacrifices bought!
Low, sweet communion mouth to mouth
Of thoughts that dewed eternal drought
Of Life's bald barrenness,--a jest,
An irony hath grown confessed
When he's at rest! when he's at rest!
Why come ye, fools!--ye lie! ye lie!
Rashly! the grave, for such as I,
Hath naught that lies as near this rest
As your high Heaven lies near your Hell!
I see why now that it is well
That men but know the husk-like shell,
Which like a fruit the being kept,
That swinked and sported, woke and slept;
From which that stern essential stept,
That ichor-veined inhabitant
Who makes me all myself, in all
My moods the "I" original,
That holds one orbit like a star,
Distinct, to which a similar
There never was, and be there can't.
And as it is, it is the best
That Death hath my poor body dressed
In such fair semblance of a rest,
Which soothes the hearts of those distressed;
But, God! unto the dead the jest
Of this his rest, of this his rest!
[The end]
Madison Julius Cawein's poem: From Unbelief To Belief
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