The Dying Christian

The Dying Christian

What hear I now? The sacred bells resound,
What pious crowd in weeping stand around?
For whom this funeral chant? - the flambeau's gloom?
O death! is this thy voice that now doth break
Upon mine ear? Oh well! I shall awake

Away beyond the tomb.

Oh thou! that glow'st a spark from sacred birth,
Who reign'st immortal in a house of Earth!
These terrors chase! - Grim death now sets them free.
Take then thy flight, O soul! cast down thy chains!
Depose the pressing weight of human pains,

For all eternity.

Times glass had ceased to number o'er my hours!
Messengers divine! to what celestial bowers,
In what new courts will ye your charms unfold?
E'en now! e'en now I float in waves of light!
Extension opens - earth itself takes flight,

Denying foothold.

But what heard I? when then my soul awoke,
Deep sighs and groans the solemn stillness broke.
Companions of my days! ye weep my death!
Ye weep - but now my pains and woes are past,
In joys I revel, in sweets that always last,

Through heaven's boundless breadth.

C.L.R.

2:25, p. 98

1838.08.11

Translated from Lamartine