There is no death.—The death-deep awful gloom We see and dread Is not the real invincible fog-fume Round the death-bed.
There is no death, no darkness. All is light. The deepest gloom Is not the murk impenetrable night Around the tomb.
There is a deeper darkness than the dark Where no stars beam: A blackness where not one most faint star-spark Can ever gleam.
Wrong-doing is death, and this alone is death. Death is sent there That we may shiver at his ice-cold breath And, shuddering, fear:
But fear not him, but his similitude— The death more deep Than ever mortal dreamed, the death more rude Than deathlike sleep.
The death we, and we only, can create; The death we bring By fraud and selfishness and wrath and hate And misdoing.
This is the eternal death. The other death Is just a change, A sudden dreamlike passage underneath A process strange.
And all that gives it horror, steeps in gloom Earth's golden springs, Is but a symbol of the eternal doom Wrong-doing brings.
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The Eternal Death
George Barlow 1847- 1914
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Graphic - Rembrandt Peale 1778-1860
