Classic Poem

I, who had slept the dreamless sleep of Death
For æons, wakened to a sense of pain,
Wrenched my stiff hands asunder, gasped for breath,
And was a man again.

The tatters of torn heaven overhead
Were swayed by hurrying wings and busy breath.
It was the resurrection of the dead,
The dying-day of Death.

The sun had halted half-way down the west;
But in the shadow of the pendant blue,
Patient and calm amid the world's unrest,
There shone a star or two.

Weird voices wailed about the vexéd sea;
Cold corses lay upon the yellow sands,
Panting themselves to life, and painfully
Moving their ashen hands.

And in a valley a black cloud was lying,
Lifted by some great giant's moaning breath.
I dared to ask, “Is that old Thunder dying?”
One whispered—“Nay, but Death.”

Ev'n where I stood I heard him moan and gasp;
Saw the cloud rising, falling like a sea;
And watched the hungry fingers pluck and grasp
The rocks deliriously.

Then, moving onward for a little space,
I climbed a hill; and on the plain below
Beheld astoniéd the hollow face
Of man's relentless foe.

About his temples, sinuous serpent veins
Seemed writhing; and his lips were thin and starven;
While by the chisel of a myriad pains
His great brow-dome was carven.

A broken scythe had fallen on the grass;
I saw brown blood upon it from afar.
But one small corner was as bright as glass,
And had a mirrored star.

So huge the blade, it might have formed an arch
O'er Jordan; and the heavy handle leant
Its weight against a pluméd patriarch larch
Until it bowed and bent.

Lo, as I looked, Death's talon-fingers locked
Convulsively; his hands were heartwards pressed:
The whole land on a sudden rolled and rocked,
Then lapséd into rest.

There lay God's grimmest, greatest servant Death.
There lay the old inexorable reaper,
Moanless and motionless, devoid of breath,
A cloud-enfolded sleeper.