I
NOW God be with you wheresoe’er you go;
God knows I would that I could go instead;
My little worthless life – dear friend, you know
How little loss it were if I were dead.
But you tune songs such as I fain would sing,
You have dared such things as would that I could do ;
In music, action, suffering, everything.
My sum is still a moiety of you.
Go, since you must, those strange and fearful ways.
Where death screams loud in hurtling of a shell ;
Would I might too ! – But though my body stays.
My spirit goes with you to the heart of hell.
For souls once stamped with love’s immortal brand
Eternally inseparable stand.
II
Full merrily you went ; yet my heart yearned
That you should go from England once again,
To tread the paths of death and danger spurned,
The darkling troublous ways of fear and pain.
Happier I was myself to go away ;
For then the man that went, perchance to die,
By life and death’s grim borderland to stray,
Was not a friend of mine, but merely I.
Call me not fool or braggart, if I know
That love awaked, in ev’n so poor a heart
As mine, desires and pants and suffers so.
To serve what is of its own self a part ;
Nor even death can sever loves so sweet ;
If not on earth, beyond it, we shall meet.
(Alec de Candole)
More Poetry from Alec de Candole:
Alec de Candole Poems based on Topics: Death & Dying, God, Pain, Man, Friendship, Fear, Actions, Hell, Music, Suffering- The Burial Of Arthur (Alec de Candole Poems)
- Laudabunt Alii (Alec de Candole Poems)
- The truth of God is known (Alec de Candole Poems)
- The Breath Of God (Alec de Candole Poems)
- Here's to the glory of life (Alec de Candole Poems)
- Heredity (Alec de Candole Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Man Poems, God Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Friendship Poems, Pain Poems, Fear Poems, Music Poems, Hell Poems, Actions Poems, Suffering PoemsBased on Keywords: braggart, inseparable, troublous, awaked, moiety, borderland