Will then, Duperrier, thy sorrow be eternal? <br />And shall the sad discourse <br />Whispered within thy heart, by tenderness paternal, <br />Only augment its force? <br /> <br />Thy daughter's mournful fate, into the tomb descending <br />By death's frequented ways, <br />Has it become to thee a labyrinth never ending, <br />Where thy lost reason strays? <br /> <br />I know the charms that made her youth a benediction: <br />Nor should I be content, <br />As a censorious friend, to solace thine affliction <br />By her disparagement. <br /> <br />But she was of the world, which fairest things exposes <br />To fates the most forlorn; <br />A rose, she too hath lived as long as live the roses, <br />The space of one brief morn. <br /> <br />* * * * * <br /> <br />Death has his rigorous laws, unparalleled, unfeeling; <br />All prayers to him are vain; <br />Cruel, he stops his ears, and, deaf to our appealing, <br />He leaves us to complain. <br /> <br />The poor man in his hut, with only thatch for cover, <br />Unto these laws must bend; <br />The sentinel that guards the barriers of the Louvre <br />Cannot our kings defend. <br /> <br />To murmur against death, in petulant defiance, <br />Is never for the best; <br />To will what God doth will, that is the only science <br />That gives us any rest.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/consolation-to-m-duperrier-gentleman-of-aix-in-provence-on-the-death-of-his-daughter/
