WHEN ALL IS DONE
by: Paul Laurence Dunbar
(1872-1906)
- HEN all is done, and my last word
is said,
- And ye who loved me murmur, "He is dead,"
- Let no one weep, for fear that I should know,
- And sorrow too that ye should sorrow so.
-
- When all is done and in the oozing clay,
- Ye lay this cast-off hull of mine away,
- Pray not for me, for, after long despair,
- The quiet of the grave will be a prayer.
-
- For I have suffered loss and grievous pain,
- The hurts of hatred and the world's disdain,
- And wounds so deep that love, well-tried and pure,
- Had not the pow'r to ease them or to cure.
-
- When all is done, say not my day is o'er,
- And that thro' night I seek a dimmer shore:
- Say rather that my morn has just begun,--
- I greet the dawn and not a setting sun,
- When all is done.
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