Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sonnets of Sorrow. 15. Loving you so I loved the world entire

Loving you so I loved the world entire,
Your friends, your kin, yea, all created life,
My heart seemed glowing with a holy fire
And every thought with tenderness was rife.
I sought to lighten sorrows and to teach
The ecstasy of life to every being;
And prayed for greater usefulness to reach
And share my insight with each soul unseening.

But since you went away from earth with Death
I seem to have no feeling left to give,
Save sharp surprise toward all things that have breath
Which cries in wonderment, "You live! You live!"
Ignoble satisfaction adds this cry,
"To all, to all shall Death come by and by."