To One Shortly To Die

FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: You are to die--Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, I am exact and merciless, but I love you--There is no escape for you. Softly I lay my right hand upon you--you just feel it, I do not argue--I bend my head close, and half envelope it, I sit quietly by--I remain faithful, I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor, I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily--that is eternal--you yourself will surely escape, The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious. The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions! 10 Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence--you smile! You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick, You do not see the medicines--you do not mind the weeping friends--I am with you, I exclude others from you--there is nothing to be commiserated, I do not commiserate--I congratulate you.