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Arthur Stringer, death, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeArthur Stringer

I Sat in the Sunlight

I sat in the sunlight thinking of life; I sat there, dreaming of Death. And a moth alit on the sun-dial's face, And the birds sang sleepily, And the leaves stirred, And the sun lay warm on the hills, And the afternoon grew old. So, some day I knew the birds would sing, And the leaves would stir, And the afternoon grow old-- And I would not be there. And the warmth went out of the day, And a wind blew out of the West where I sat, And the birds were still!
SadArthur Stringer

The Dream

I lay by your side last night. By you, in my dreams, I felt the damp of the grave. I was dead with you-- And my bones still ache with Death. For my hand went out and I touched your lips, And I found them fallen away, Wasted and lost! Those lips once warm with life Were eaten and gone! And my soul screamed out in the dark At the intimate blackness of Death. And then I arose from the dead And returned to the day; And my bones and my heart still ache with it all, And I hunger to hear the relieving babble of life,
SadArthur Stringer

Prescience

"The sting of it all," you said, as you stooped low over your roses, "The worst of it is, when I think of Death, That Spring by Spring the Earth shall still be beautiful, And Summer by Summer be lovely again, --And I shall be gone!" "I would not care, perhaps," you said, watching your roses, "If only 'twere dust and ruin and emptiness left behind! But the thought that Earth and April Year by casual year Shall waken around the old ways, soft and beautiful, Year by year when I am away, --This, this breaks my heart!"
SadArthur Stringer

You Bid Me to Sleep

You bid me to sleep,-- But why, O Daughter of Beauty, Was beauty thus born in the world? Since out of these shadowy eyes The wonder shall pass! And out of this surging and passionate breast The dream shall depart! And out of these delicate rivers of warmth The fire shall wither and fail! And youth like a bird from your body shall fly! And Time like a fang on your flesh shall feed! And this perilous bosom that pulses with love Shall go down to the dust from which it arose,-- Yet Daughter of Beauty, close, Close to its sumptuous warmth You hold my sorrowing head,
SadArthur Stringer

Life

A rind of light hangs low On the rim of the world; A sound of feet disturbs The quiet of the cell Where a rope and a beam looms high At the end of the yard. But in the dusk Of that walled yard waits a woman; And as the thing from its cell, Still guarded and chained and bound, Crosses that little space, Silent, for ten brief steps, A woman hangs on his neck. And that walk from a cell to a sleep Is known as Life, And those ten dark steps

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