We trace the pow'r of Death from tomb to tomb, <br />And his are all the ages yet to come. <br />'Tis his to call the planets from on high, <br />To blacken Phoebus, and dissolve the sky; <br />His too, when all in his dark realms are hurl'd, <br />From its firm base to shake the solid world; <br />His fatal sceptre rules the spacious whole, <br />And trembling nature rocks from pole to pole. <br /> Awful he moves, and wide his wings are spread: <br /> <br />Behold thy brother number'd with the dead! <br />From bondage freed, the exulting spirit flies <br />Beyond Olympus, and these starry skies. <br />Lost in our woe for thee, blest shade, we mourn <br />In vain; to earth thou never must return. <br />Thy sisters too, fair mourner, feel the dart <br />Of Death, and with fresh torture rend thine heart. <br />Weep not for them, and leave the world behind. <br /> <br /> As a young plant by hurricanes up torn, <br />So near its parent lies the newly born-- <br />But 'midst the bright ethereal train behold <br />It shines superior on a throne of gold: <br />Then, mourner, cease; let hope thy tears restrain, <br />Smile on the tomb, and sooth the raging pain. <br />On yon blest regions fix thy longing view, <br />Mindless of sublunary scenes below; <br />Ascend the sacred mount, in thought arise, <br />And seek substantial and immortal joys; <br />Where hope receives, where faith to vision springs, <br />And raptur'd seraphs tune th' immortal strings <br />To strains ecstatic. Thou the chorus join, <br />And to thy father tune the praise divine.<br /><br />Phillis Wheatley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-lady-on-the-death-of-three-relations/
