Littell's Living Age/Volume 154/Issue 1995/Two Rondeaux

by Charles Dent Bell

                    I.
          WORKS DEATH SUCH A CHANGE?

Works Death such change upon our dead,
Doth it such awe around them spread,
     That should they suddenly appear,
     At once we’d shrink from them with fear,
Though on their breast we laid our head?

Why should their light and ghostly tread
Thus thrill us with a nameless dread,
     If still we hold them all so dear?
               Works Death such change?

We kiss’d their cold lips on the bier,
And weeping wish’d the spirit here;
     And shall the wish be all unsaid,
     If some night, rising near our bed,
They stand within the moonlight clear?
               Works Death such change?



                    II.
          I WOULD NOT SHRINK.

I would not shrink if some dear ghost,
One of the Dead’s unnumber’d host,
     Should rise in silence of the night,
     Shrined in an aureole of light,
And pale as snowdrop in the frost.

No! If the brother loved and lost,
For me the silent river cross’d,
     For me left worlds all fair and bright,
               I would not shrink.

Oh, if I gauge my heart aright,
Dear would the dead be to my sight.
     A vision from the other coast
     Of one on earth I cherish’d most,
Would be a measureless delight;
               I would not shrink.