When all is done, and my last word is said, <br />And ye who loved me murmur, 'He is dead,' <br />Let no one weep, for fear that I should know, <br />And sorrow too that ye should sorrow so. <br /> <br />When all is done and in the oozing clay, <br />Ye lay this cast-off hull of mine away, <br />Pray not for me, for, after long despair, <br />The quiet of the grave will be a prayer. <br /> <br />For I have suffered loss and grievous pain, <br />The hurts of hatred and the world's disdain, <br />And wounds so deep that love, well-tried and pure, <br />Had not the pow'r to ease them or to cure. <br /> <br />When all is done, say not my day is o'er, <br />And that thro' night I seek a dimmer shore: <br />Say rather that my morn has just begun,-- <br />I greet the dawn and not a setting sun, <br />When all is done.<br /><br />Paul Laurence Dunbar<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-all-is-done-3/
