Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/Nothing That Can Die
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For other versions of this work, see Nothing that can die.
NOTHING THAT CAN DIE
NOTHING that we deem can die
Has any thought of death:
The mortal thing, without a sigh—
Without reproachful plaint or cry—
Yields scarcely conscious breath;
The coming sleep to it the same
As that from which it all-unknowing came.
But spirit cannot so resign
A hope that o'er the depths of sorrow
Like to a star remains: a sign
That strengthens, by its beam divine,
To-day with promise of To-morrow!
Nay; longing, vital, and foreseeing,
Itself becomes a pledge of deathless being.