Mors Benefica
Mors Benefica
Original Text
The Poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908): 465. Internet Archive University of the Pacific
1Give me to die unwitting of the day,
2 And stricken in Life's brave heat, with senses clear:
3 Not swathed and couched until the lines appear
4Of Death's wan mask upon this withering clay,
5But as that old man eloquent made way
6 From Earth, a nation's conclave hushed anear;
7 Or as the chief whose fates, that he may hear
8The victory, one glorious moment stay.
9Or, if not thus, then with no cry in vain,
10 No ministrant beside to ward and weep,
11Hand upon helm I would my quittance gain
12 In some wild turmoil of the waters deep,
13 And sink content into a dreamless sleep
14(Spared grave and shroud) below the ancient main.
Publication Start Year
1893
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form