Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems >>
The Soul's Complaint Against The Body. (From The Anglo-Saxon)

Much it behoveth
Each one of mortals,
That he his soul’s journey
In himself ponder,
How deep it may be.
When Death cometh,
The bonds he breaketh
By which were united
The soul and the body.

Long it is thenceforth
Ere the soul taketh
From God himself
Its woe or its weal;
As in the world erst,
Even in its earth-vessel,
It wrought before.

The soul shall come
Wailing with loud voice,
After a sennight,
The soul, to find
The body
That it erst dwelt in;–
Three hundred winters,
Unless ere that worketh
The Eternal Lord,
The Almighty God,
The end of the world.

Crieth then, so care-worn,
With cold utterance,
And speaketh grimly,
The ghost to the dust:
“Dry dust! thou dreary one!
How little didst thou labor for me!
In the foulness of earth
Thou all wearest away
Like to the loam!
Little didst thou think
How thy soul’s journey
Would be thereafter,
When from the body
It should be led forth.”

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

More Poetry from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

• The Golden Legend: VI. The School Of Salerno (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)
• The Golden Legend: V. A Covered Bridge At Lucerne (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)
• The Golden Legend: Prologue & 1. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)
• By The Seaside : The Building Of The Ship (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)
• Coplas De Manrique (From The Spanish) (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)
• The Blind Girl Of Castel-Cuille. (From The Gascon of Jasmin) (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)

Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:

• I Stood Tip-Toe Upon A Little Hill (John Keats Poems)
• The Links O' Forth : Or, A Parting Peep At The Carse O' Sterling (Hector MacNeill Poems)
• The Sydney International Exhibition (Henry Kendall Poems)
• The General Resurrection (Mary Ann Carter Poems)
• An Heroic Epistle of Hudibras To His Lady (Samuel Butler Poems)