The Sting of Death
The Sting of Death
Original Text
Frederick George Scott, Poems (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1936): 148-49. PS 8487 C63 P6 1936 Robarts Library (signed by the author).
1`Is Sin, then, fair?'
2 Nay, love, come now,
3Put back the hair
4 From his sunny brow;
5See, here, blood-red
6Across his head
7A brand is set,
8The word -- `Regret.'
9`Is Sin so fleet
10 That while he stays,
11Our hands and feet
12 May go his ways?'
13Nay, love, his breath
14Clings round like death,
15He slakes desire
16With liquid fire.
17`Is Sin Death's sting?'
18 Ay, sure he is,
19His golden wing
20 Darkens man's bliss;
21And when Death comes,
22Sin sits and hums
23A chaunt of fears
24Into man's ears.
25`How slayeth Sin?'
26 First, God is hid,
27And the heart within
28 By its own self chid;
29Then the maddened brain
30Is scourged by pain
31To sin as before
32And more and more,
33For evermore.
Publication Start Year
1894
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
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