Thomas Hood

Death

 Sonnet

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapped in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this,--but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft,--and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.