Classic Poem

Are we poor mortals confidently sure
That it is right to say our friends are blest,
When they have left us for a tomb impure,
And go to what is called eternal rest?

Should we maintain as truth within our souls,
That they are indefectibly content?
That they have vanished to celestial goals,
And grieve to hear us woefully lament?

Must we of simple faith forever trust
That utter peace is given to decay?
Must we believe men mutely turn to dust,
And are manimate till the Judgment Day?

Ah no, alas! and those we worshiped so,
Buried in dim, sepulchral crypts and chill.
May be alive in ways we little know,
May think, may love, may yearn, may suffer still!

Awful and silent anguish may have dwelt
In flesh inert, the world no longer knows,
And horrible Infernos may be felt,
Ere sweet annihilation brings repose.

For all the numberless and coffined dead,
Freed from this life of odium and of sin,
May writhe with madness in their earthy bed,
Conscious when putretaction doth begin!

The one we loved the most, in graveyards dark,
May sob and shudder at the fatal term,
When over withered limbs unclean and stark,
Lazily crawis the first dark eyeless worm.

And ah, the agony that they may feel!
The terror of such solitude! the hells
Of thought no word or image may reveal,
In tortured brains where hope no longer dwells.

Quick, wild appeals and prayers would then be vain,
Christ hears them not, the universe is dumb,
And they may lie immovable in pain,
Awaiting laggard rot that will not come.

*****

Therefore, oh ye bereaved, whene'er you see
The forms once cherished placed beneath the sod,
Think with chilled, beating hearts of what may be,
And praise in your despair no callous God!