Tag Archives: mortality

Requiescat by Matthew Arnold

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Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!
Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.
Her cabin’d, ample spirit,
It flutter’d and fail’d for breath.
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.

Milk

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“He’s dead”
She said.
What to say?
Meaningless words
Of sympathy, by her probably only half heard
While thinking “I must get away,
The shop will soon close
And heaven knows
I am out of milk. Well nearly so.
Poor lady how will she go
On without him?”
A short walk and I am in
The shop where once they together went
And spent notes that crumble into dust.

Reaper

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Sitting in a field
I watch the grain yield
To the fickle
Sickle
That momentarily spares a stalk
As onward the reaper doth walk.

When he does approach
Will I reproach
Him and say,
“‘Tis not my day
To die
For the birds fly
In a cloudless sky.
I would gather wild flowers to my breast.
Surely ‘tis not time to rest?
Reaper go your way
For I feign would play
Another hour under the sun”.

Will he reply,
“All things must die.
You have had your fun.
Did you not see time, as the river run
Away?
Cease your play.
Face it like a man, for you have debts to pay”.