Classic Poem

Not Death himself
Hath hands so flinty, and so freezing cold,
As hath this Never. Over what was ours
Death leaves with most of us a dim perhaps
That floats through silence, undefined in form,
Tormenting fancy, not destroying hope.
No More! Intense is this in awfulness;
But its dread fiat not to be revoked,
That death, or circumstance, — that living death, —
Must put an endless end to all most dear,
Is far less dread than Never's mandate is,
Because the very more implies the once.
Never is merciless beyond compare,
Because the precious once dies in his clutch,
That once which makes the always of great souls.
Somewhere in every heart the Never strikes,
Dealing a death-blow to some begging wish;
If for an object that is loved as life,
It is as though importunate Desire
Were the undying soul of dying Hope
Whose body this relentless Never kills,
Leaving its spirit in eternal thirst.