The Household Book of Poetry

Death Carol.

COME, lovely and soothing Death,

Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee glad serenades,

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriv- Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee; adorn

ing

ments and feastings for thee;

And the sights of the open landscape, and the

high-spread sky, are fitting,

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night, in silence, under many a star; The ocean-shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;

And the soul turning to thee, O vast and wellveiled Death,

And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide;

Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,

When it is so-when thou hast taken them, I joy- I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O

ously sing the dead,

Death!

WALT WHITMAN.

PART X.

POEMS OF RELIGION.

OH! what is man, great Maker of mankind!
That Thou to him so great respect dost bear-
That Thou adorn'st him with so bright a mind,
Mak'st him a king, and even an angel's peer ?
Oh! what a lively life, what heavenly power,
What spreading virtue, what a sparkling fire!
How great, how plentiful, how rich a dower
Dost Thou within this dying flesh inspire!

Thou leav'st Thy print in other works of Thine,
But Thy whole image Thou in man hast writ;
There cannot be a creature more divine,

Except, like Thee, it should be infinite.

But it exceeds man's thought, to think how high
God hath raised man, since God a man became ;
The angels do admire this mystery,

And are astonished when they view the same.

Nor hath he given these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the body's life depend:
The soul, though made in time, survives for aye,
And though it hath beginning, sees no end.

SIR JOHN DAVIES.

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