Explore "Death. from the Arabic" by George Borrow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Grim Death in his shroud swatheth mortals each hour, / Yet little we reck of what's hanging us o'er; / O would on the world that ye laid not such stress, / That its baubles ye lov'd not, so gaudy and poor; / O where are the friends we were wont to caress, / And where are the lov'd ones who dwelt on our floor?
They have drank of the goblet of death's bitterness, / And have gone to the deep, to return never more; / Their mansions bewail them in tears and distress; / Yet has paradise lovelier mansions in store; / Of the worth of the plume the dove strips from its dress / Were their views, save in memory heaven they bore.