Page:Destroyers and Other Verses.djvu/16



Death set his mark and left a mangled thing,

With palsied limbs no science could restore,

To weary out the weeks or months or years,

Amidst the tumult of a mother's tears

Behind the sick-room door,

Where tender skill and subtle knowledge bring

Brief respite only from the ultimate

Decree of fate.

Then, like the flowers we planted in his room,

Bud after bud we watched his soul unfold;

Each delicate bloom

Of alabaster, violet, and gold

Struggled to light,

Drawing its vital breath

Within the pallid atmosphere of death.

That valiant spirit has not passed away,

But lives and grows

Within us as a penetrating ray

Of sunshine on a crystal surface glows

With many-hued refraction. He has fled

Into the unknown silence of the night,

But cannot die till human hearts are dead.