Obituary Page

Now they begin to go;
the lonely-walking or the crowded-round,
the fortunate, the hapless, friend or foe;
the loosed or bound;
into the dark they flutter, settling slow
like snow upon the ground. . . .

Into the dark, either to depth or height, —
wrenched from convivial tumult, or despair,
in sudden rigor, in that strange despite
of terror, or its foil, delight, —
or inward drawn somewhere
divested of ascension or declension,
moving still near us in some fourth dimension. . . .

No fluttering snow are they, but blades made bare,
plucked from the sheath! For these I knew were swords
and those were flames — and many were aware,
in age, of that which is not said with words.
O, anywhere,
God fend, and send them into brighter air!