At Last

In youth, when blood was warm and fancy high, I mocked at death. How many a quaint conceit I wove about his veiled head and feet, Vaunting aloud, Why need we dread to die? But now, enthralled by deep solemnity, Death's pale phantasmal shade I darkly greet: Ghostlike it haunts the hearth, it haunts the street, Or drearier makes drear midnight's mystery. Ah, soul-perplexing vision! oft I deem That antique myth is true which pictured death A masked and hideous form all shrank to see; But at the last slow ebb of mortal breath, Death, his mask melting like a nightmare dream, Smiled,--heaven's high-priest of Immortality!