John White Chadwick: The hardest lot

John White Chadwick

(1840-1904)

The hardest lot

 

O look upon the face of a dead friend

Is hard; but ’tis not more than we can bear

If, haply, we can see peace written there,–

Peace after pain, and welcome so the end,

Whate’er the past, whatever death may send.

Yea, and that face a gracious smile may wear,

If love till death was perfect, sweet, and fair;

But there is woe from which may God defend:

To look upon our friendship lying dead,

While we live on, and eat, and drink, and sleep–

Mere bodies from which all the soul has fled–

And that dead thing year after year to keep

Locked in cold silence in its dreamless bed:–

There must be hell while there is such a deep.

 

“The Hardest Lot” is reprinted from American Sonnets. Ed. William Sharp. London: Walter Scott, 1889

John White Chadwick poetry

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