Consolation

Among all sorrows that my heart hath known,
Among all sorrows that my spirit keep
Forever buried ’neath their mountains steep,
Standeth one consolation, one alone.

I know that earth shall be for death a throne,
And evermore within their burials deep
The banded nations of the earth shall sleep,
Sunken in sepulchres of sculptur’d stone.

Then all the world shall be a quietness:
Dead women beautiful with their delights;
All they that had such striving and distress,

And endless weariness in all the lands,
White faces, eager heart-strings, soiled hands;
And peace shall hold the valleys and the heights.