Richard Watson Gilder writes this verse about a dead poet:
I read that, in his sleep, the poet died
Ere the day broke;
In a new dawn, as rose earth’s crimson tide,
His spirit woke.
Yet still with us his golden spirit stayed,
On the same page
That told his end, his living verse I read--
His lyric rage.
Behold! I thought, they call him cold in death;
But hither turn,
See where his soul, a glorious, flaming breath,
Doth pulse and burn.
This is the poet’s triumph, his high doom!
After life’s stress--
For him the silent, dark, o’ershadowing tomb
Is shadowless.
And this the miracle and mystery--
In that he gives
His soul away, magnificently free,
By this he lives. (Text.)
--_The Outlook._
(1542)