Rosemary and Pansies

<h2><SPAN name="BENIGNANT_DEATH" id="BENIGNANT_DEATH"></SPAN>BENIGNANT DEATH</h2> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Thanking God for life and light,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Strength and joyous breath,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Should we not, with reverent lips,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Thank Him, too, for death?<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">When would man’s injustice cease,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Did not stern Death bring<br/></span> <span class="i0">Those who cheated and oppressed<br/></span> <span class="i2">To their reckoning?<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Would not life’s long sordidness<br/></span> <span class="i2">On our spirits pall,<br/></span> <span class="i0">If our years should last forever,<br/></span> <span class="i2">And the earth were all?<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">On us, withered with life’s heat,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Falls death’s cooling dew,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And our parched souls’ dusty leaves<br/></span> <span class="i2">Their lost green renew.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Ah, though deep the grave-dust hide<br/></span> <span class="i2">Love and courage high,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Life a paltrier thing would be<br/></span> <span class="i2">If we could not die!<br/></span> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</SPAN></span></div> </div></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />