Poems (Angier)/King Death

by Annie Lanman Angier

KING DEATH.

King Death is an archer fierce and strong,
 He points with unerring aim;
And what though his victim avoid him long?
 He is sure to track out his game.

He laughs at the monarch's jewelled brow,
 He fears not his ghastly frown;
And while the monk is recording his vow,
 In the grave Death lays him down.

He drags the prisoner from his cell,
 The peasant from his cot;
And he must be wise of a home to tell
 That King Death entereth not.

He takes the babe from its mother's breast,
 The boy from his father's knee,
And bears them away to their dreamless rest,
 Beneath the cypress tree.

He heeds not a sigh the maiden heaves,
 He careth naught for her tear;
But when the autumn winds sere the leaves,
 He lays her on his bier.

The stately oak, with its branches brown,
 Like his own bow he bends;
And the hale young tree, with its verdant crown,
 By a single stroke he rends.

He plucks the wreath from the victor now,
 A gasp, and then a groan;
And one who never had learned to bow,
 He has taught his will to own.

The warrior brave his armor binds,
 Death sees its weakest part;
And through the burnished shield he finds
 His way to the soldier's heart.

He lays the saint, whose well-spent days
 Have made him ripe for heaven,
By the side of one whose sinful ways,
 Perchance, are unforgiven.

In times of peace, 'mid scenes of war,
 His arrows are flying still;
And on he drives his conquering car,
 While his watchword is—to kill!

King Death is a tyrant, grim and old,
 All must yield to his murderous sway;
Yet his dark deeds never can all be told,
 Till the last man has passed away.

But when Earth shall have met her final doom,
 And old Time's dirge hath been sung;
King Death, the archer, shall sink to the tomb,
 And his bow never more will be strung.