Life and Death

A little light, heat, motion, breath; Then silence, darkness, and decay; This is the change from life to death In him the weareth clay. But Time’s one drop ’twixt that and this, Ah! What a gulf of doom it is. The cheek is fair, the eye is bold, The ripe lip like a berry red; Then the shroud clothes them;—thus behold The living and the dead! And how time’s last cold drop serence Swells to eternity between. Yet not for horror, nor to weep; But through the solemn dark to see That life, though swift, is wonder-deep, And death the only key That lets to that mysterious height Where earth and heaven in God unite.