Herman Melville

“ To view death on the bed--at ease--
A dream, and draped; to minister
To inheriting kin; to comfort these
In chamber comfortable;--here
The elements all that unsay! ⁠50
The first man dies. Thus Abel lay. ”

“ The Pluto-bolt, the fatal one
Wreathed over by the hung festoon. ⁠75
How fare we now? But were it clear
In nature or in lore devout
That parted souls live on in cheer,
Gladness would be shut pathos out.
His poor thin life: the end? no more? ⁠80
The end here by the Dead Sea shore?"
He turned him, as awaiting nod
Or answer from earth, air, or skies;
But be it ether or the clod,
The elements yield no replies. ⁠85
Cross-legged on a cindery hight,
Belex, the fatalist, smoked on.
Slow whiffs; and then, "It needs be done:
Come, beach the loins there, Bethlehemite."-- ”