To Paul Laurence Dunbar the secret of death has already been made
plain, of which before he died he wrote as follows:
The smell of the sea in my nostrils,
The sound of the sea in mine ears;
The touch of the spray on my burning face,
Like the mist of reluctant tears;
The blue of the sky above me,
The green of the waves beneath;
The sun flashing down on a gray-white sail
Like a simitar from its sheath.
So I said to my heart, “Be silent;
The mystery of time is here;
Death’s way will be plain when we fathom the main,
And the secret of life be clear.”
(689)