Poem by Paul Hamilton Hayne

At Last

In youth, when blood was warm and fancy high,
I mocked at death. How many a quaint conceit
I wove about his veiled head and feet,
Vaunting aloud, Why need we dread to die?
But now, enthralled by deep solemnity,
Death's pale phantasmal shade I darkly greet:
Ghostlike it haunts the hearth, it haunts the street,
Or drearier makes drear midnight's mystery.
Ah, soul-perplexing vision! oft I deem
That antique myth is true which pictured death
A masked and hideous form all shrank to see;
But at the last slow ebb of mortal breath,
Death, his mask melting like a nightmare dream,
Smiled,—heaven's high-priest of Immortality!

1. An Idle Poet, Dreaming in the Sun
2. Too Oft the Poet in Elaborate Verse
3. Along the Path Thy Bleeding Feet Have Trod
4. Baby’s First Word
5. The Laughing Hours before Her Feet

Madison Cawein At Last ("What shall be said to him")

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