nd is it not better than this fitful fever and pain?
Aye, and is it not better, if only the dead soul knew?
Dead Ashes, what do you care if it storm, if it shine, if it shower?
Hail-storm, tornado or tempest, or the blinding blizzard of snow,
Or the mid-May showers on the blossoms with the glad sun blinking between,
Dead Ashes, what do you care?--they break not the sleep of the dead.

Proud stands the ship to the sea, fair breezes belly her sails;
Strong masted, stanch in her shrouds, stanch in her beams and her bones;
Bound for Hesperian isles--for the isles of the plantain and palm,
Hope walks her deck with a smile and Confidence stands at the helm;
Proudly she turns to the sea and walks like a queen on the waves.
Caught in the grasp of the tempest, lashed by the fiends of the storm,
Torn into shreds are her sails, tumbled her masts to the main;
Rudderless, rolling she drives and groans in the grasp of the sea;
Harbor or hope there is none; she goes to her grave in the brine:
Dead in the fathomless slime lie the bones of the ship and her crew.
Such was the promise of life; so is the promise fulfilled.

Down into the darkness at last, Daniel,--down into the darkness at last;
Laid in the lap of our Mother, Daniel,--sleeping the dreamless sleep,--
Sleeping the sleep of the babe unborn--the pure and the perfect rest:
Aye, and is it not better than this fitful fever and pain?
Aye, and is it not better, if only the dead soul knew?
Over your grave the tempest may roar or the zephyr sigh;
Over your grave the blue-bells may blink or the snow-drifts whirl,--
Dead Ashes, what do you care?--they break not the sleep of the dead.
They that were friends may mourn, they that were friends may praise;
They that knew you and yet--knew you never--may cavil and blame;
They that were foes in disguise may strike at you down in the grave;
Slander, the scavenger-buzzard--may vomit her lies on you there;
Dead Ashes, what do you care?--they break not the sleep of the dead.

The hoarse, low voice of the years croaks on forever-and-aye:
_Change! Change! Change_! and the winters wax and wane.
The old oak dies in the forest; the acorn sprouts at its feet;
The sea gnaws on at the land; the continent crowds on the sea.
Bound to the Ixion wheel with brazen fetters of fate
Man rises up from the dust and falls to the dust again.
God washes our eyes with tears, and still they are blinded with dust:
We grope in the dark and marvel, and pray to the Powe