And that is all of death there is, Believe me. If you find your love In that far land, then like the dove Abide, and turn not back to this. But if you find your love not there; Or if your feet feel sure, and you Have still allotted work to do,-- Why, then return to toil and care. Death is no mystery. 'Tis plain If death be mystery, then sleep Is mystery thrice strangely deep,-- For oh this coming back again! Austerest ferryman of souls! I see the gleam of solid shores, I hear thy steady stroke of oars Above the wildest wave that rolls. O Charon, keep thy sombre ships! We come, with neither myrrh nor balm, Nor silver piece in open palm, But lone white silence on our lips. VII. She prays so long! she prays so late! What sin in all this flower-land Against her supplicating hand Could have in heaven any weight? Prays she for her sweet self alone? Prays she for some one far away, Or some one near and dear to-day, Or some poor, lorn, lost soul unknown? It seems to me a selfish thing To pray forever for one's self; It seems to me like heaping pelf In heaven by hard reckoning. Why, I would rather stoop, and bear My load of sin, and bear it well And bravely down to burning hell, Than ever pray one selfish prayer! VIII. The swift chameleon in the gloom-- This silence it is so profound!-- Forsakes its bough, glides to the ground, Then up, and lies across the tomb. It erst was green as olive-leaf, It then grew gray as myrtle moss The time it slid the moss across; But now 'tis marble-white with grief. The little creature's hues are gone; Here in the pale and ghostly light It lies so pale, so panting white,-- White as the tomb it lies upon. The two men by that nameless tomb, And both so still! You might have said These two men, they are also dead, And only waiting here for room. How still beneath the orange-bough! How tall was one, how bowed was one! The one was as a journey done, The other as beginning now. And one was young,--young with that youth Eternal that belongs to truth; And one was old,--old with the years That follow fast on doubts and fears. And yet the habit of command Was his, in every stubborn part; No common knave was he at heart, Nor his the common coward's hand. He looked the young man in the face, So full of hate, so frank of hate; The other, standing in his place, Stared back as straight and hard as fate. And now he sudden turned away, And now he paced the path, and now Came back, beneath the orange-bough Pale-browed, with lips as cold as clay. As mute as shadows on a wall, As silent still, as dark as they, Before that stranger, bent and gray, The youth stood scornful, proud, and tall.