[BNP/E3, 153 – 57]

ON DEATH.

To correct

IV.

When I consider how each day’s career                       ✓

       Doth with its footstep swift yet heavy tread

       Approach my soul to those great regions dread

And bring my soul youth to timeless death more near,

Thought strange and sad to one it doth appear

       That I (who[1] now feel life) must too soon be dead

       Some vague, uncertain sorrow weighs my head     Copied

And whelms my coward mind with lengthless fear.

Nevertheless through sorrow rage and tear

My heart yet I each moment’s boon shall seize[2]

And shape rude laughter[3] from each heart-felt moan:

Not without hope is most extreme despair,

I know not death and think it no release —

The bad, indeed, is better than th’ unknown.                 ✓

                                               C. R. Anon.

May 1904.

[1] now who

[2] My heart though pain and hope and grow despair yet I each moment’s boon shall seize

[3] Yet will I cling And shape rude laughter