by Luis G. Dato
Death, inevitable hour that e’er will hold
For us a stretch of pained anxiety.
Whose gates wide open we can never see,
Nor these to close suffice the dead man’s gold —
Within our beings is it hourly told
That we must cease from living, leave yet we
Cannot peer through the veil that hides the sea
Or shore which waits us when our day is old.
Death is a demon watching how we spend
Earth’s little hour when we are still of this;
Today, tomorrow, our broken way we wend
Stopping awhile some wayside flower to kiss,
A little moment only, then its voice will rise.
And a new life—and death—in other skies.
