Death, Who Art Thou? Poem by Annie Adams Fields

THUS questioned they who watched the Ægean Sea
Stretch up white arms to drag the diver down,
And they who waked to find Thermopylæ
Scarlet and white with glory overblown.

Tears dropped, even then, in that far early world, --
Dropped on the soft face of the fresh-turned earth;
And curses gathered by despair were hurled
By mortal sorrow in her primal birth.

But the young runner grasped his wreath and died;
Antinous loved and plunged him in the deep;
The goal attained, -- world's glory and world's pride, --
Life held no more, they said, and sank to sleep.

Death, thou wert laurel and crown in that young dawn;
Happy the heroes in thy dusky fields
With double flute and forms in ghostly lawn
Dancing, or bearing calm their shadowy shields.

Ages rolled on, a mighty Teacher came;
The words He spake were spirit and were life;
The hearts of men kindled and were aflame;
Sudden he vanished, leaving them at strife.

Yet He had said: 'The things that now I know
The world knows not; hereafter this shall be;
Proof of my love and faith, behold I go
Fearless away, whither men cannot see.'

Then in the dark they questioned yet again
After his light went out: 'Behold the pit!
Thither the Master went through blood and pain
Into the silence. Let us worship it!'

Yet ever through the darkness came one ray,
The Master's birth-star glimmering in the east;
And they who watched, they also learned to pray
For clearer vision and for light increased.

Again the ages pass, and still they find
On woodland pathways lovers two by two,
Held by the ties which mortal creatures bind
To last forever, ever seeming new.

Yet autumns must return, and leave beside
The dying embers one who sits alone,
Crying, 'Oh, where? What planet calls thy tide
While I remain to know the summer done?'

'Still am I here,' Love answers; 'time is short
And life is endless, and the spirit mounts!
The little good I strove for, and what wrought,
Was but a child's task that the man recounts.

'You question what is death? Behold the tide
That bore me swiftly from you hither brought
All but the frail frame in the earth's green side,
And quickens in the flow the living thought.

'And I would tell thee more'' -- Then stillness fell
Abroad upon the earth; voice there was none.
Alas! the voice of Love can no more tell!
But Death will show that Love and he are one.