The ship may sink,
And I may drink
A hasty death in the bitter sea;
But all that I leave
In the ocean grave
Can be slipped and spared, and no loss to me.
What care I
Though falls the sky
And the shriveling earth to a cinder turn;
No fires of doom
Can ever consume
What never was made nor meant to burn!
Let go the breath!
There is no death
To a living soul, nor loss, nor harm.
Not of the clod
Is the life of God--
Let it mount, as it will, from form to form.
--Charles Gordon Ames.