I bring to thee, for love, white roses, delicate Death! <br />White lilies of the valley, dropping gently tears, <br />The white camellia, the seal of perfect years, <br />The misty white azalea, flickering as a breath. <br />White flowers I bring, and all the flowers I bring for thee, <br />Discreet and comforting Death! for those pale hands of thine; <br />O hands that I have fled, soft hands now laid on mine, <br />Softer than these white flowers of life, thy hands to me, <br />Most comfortable Death, mother of many dreams, <br />And gatherer of many dreams of men, <br />Dreams that come desolately flying back again, <br />With soiled and quivering wings, from undiscovered streams. <br />I have been fearful of thee, mother, all life long, <br />For I have loved a warm, alluring, treacherous bride, <br />Life, and she loved thee not; to hold me from thy side, <br />She closed her arms about my heart, to do thee wrong. <br />O gay and bitter bride of such divine desires, <br />Too fiercely passionate Life, that wast so prodigal <br />Of thine eternal moments, at the end of all <br />Take my forgiveness: I have passed through all thy fires. <br />Nothing can hurt me now, and having gained and lost <br />All things, and having loved, and having done with life, <br />I come back to thy arms, mother, and now all strife <br />Ceases; and every homeward-flying dream, wind-tossed, <br />My soul that looks upon thy face and understands, <br />My throbbing heart that at thy touch is quieted, <br />And all that once desired, and all desire now dead, <br />Are gathered to the peace and twilight of thy hands.<br /><br />Arthur Symons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/laus-mortis/
