About It and About

What made you speak so, Youth, just now before These elders, men much nearer to the thing You touch on? Ah, but no. They claim it so Yet I deny, for Graybeards grudge to have Youth whisper, “Death” ... because they feel it close? And Youth’s poor boldness makes it still more close? Youth always speaks on death by proper right; He has but left it when he enters life While Graybeard’s years have dulled the sense that knew Prenatal death, and now its imminence Stifles his speech.... While Youth, Youth only dares! So I ... hearing such bootless thoughts on death, Oblivion, rest, eternal pain, reward.... Somehow they think death lasts, and seek to lie Disposed at ease through aeons, or perhaps Send on their proper sandal-size ahead To heaven’s commissary. Thus Graybeards. And yet, Youth also misconstrues its sort, Makes it a vale deep-shadowed, where within Ghosts glide ’neath cloistering cypress trees and sup Of honey cakes in tombs wisteria-hung: Cloaked lovers stroll through hazel groves and come To Lethe’s bank ... or in another mood, Visioning death as ugly, conjures up A creatured sprite bent on a tarnished scythe. But death, and such my death will be, is naught To stop a soul’s drive nor to even check Its impetus. Death is transition, well, Transition’s but a word ... or say it thus, It simply lies, a gap between two rails The drive wheel rushes over unaware. K. A. CAMPBELL, JR.