The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-11-07
WHAT THE POETS SAY.
BY HATTIE TYING GRISwoLD.


1T is my opinion that the gradual
change which has come over the
Christian world in it's attitude toward
the subject of death, is slargely due to
the facts of the modern world. The
poets, as rule, are not very much in
love with life, and in one form or
another they have written of death,
not as the great arch enemy, but
as the friend of man. Certainly
there is not the dread and horror of
death today, in the minds at least of
cultivated people, which was once
felt, and what I allude to may be
only one of the causes, but that it is
an important one feel sure.
have thought that it might be in
teresting to bring together a few of
the utterances of we'll poets
upon the subject.
The number might be extended in
definitely, but I shall present but
few of my own favorites.
ALI will remember the dirge from
Cymbeline, quoted by Tennyson on
his deathbed, beginning,
''Fear no more the heat o. the sun,
Nor the furious winters RACES;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
and ending
"Quiet contamination have,
And renowned be thy grave"
The phrase "quiet contamination"
perhaps expresses the beautiful fact
Of death as no phrase outside of
Shakespeare does express it, Surely
that other line IS sweet and comfort
ing also:
"Thou hast finished joy and moan"
Tennyson in his youth wrote dirge
almost as frankly pagan as Shaks-
peare's, running:
'Now is done thy long days work:
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.
Let them rave,
Shadows of the silver birk
Sweep the green that folds thy grave,
etthem rave.n
But in his old age he also wrote
"Crossing the Bar" ending with the
hopeful lines:
Far though beyond this bourne of time and
sense,
The tide may bear me far,
1 hope to meet my pilot face to face
When have crossed the bar"
The picture comes to me as write,
of this great poet lying in his stately
chamber, within sound of the sighing
of the sea, on that memorable moon
light night, while his family were
gathered about him waiting for the
end; and l can almost hear his
quivering voice as he repeats the
solemn lines of the dirge. He had
ordered away the lights, and lay
dying in the moonlight. "After that
the dark" Yet l trust there was no
murmur of farewell when the soul
slipped away. 1t was poets death;
solemn. stately, and serene. 1t was
true of him as of the friend he cele-
brated.
"Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music OUT
could fill these pages with ex-
tracts from him alone about death
and Immortality, but they are famil-
lar, and l will turn to some that are
less so to most readers. Shelley in
his Adonais has two beautiful lines:
awake him not, he surely takes his fill
OF deep and liquid rest, forgetful OF all ILL.,"
And his personal longings are ex.
pressed after this fashion elsewhere:
"Yet now despair itself is mild
Even as the winds ana waters are;
could lie down like tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which have borne, and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe Der my dying brain its last mOnotony"
James Thompson added one to the
many beautiful dirges;
"Thou hast lived in pain and woe,
Thou hast lived in grief and fear
Now thine heart can dread no blow.
Now thine eyes can shed no tear;
Storms round us shall beat and rave,
Thou art sheltered In the grave.
Thou for long, long years hast borne