The Life Beyond

He wakes, who never thought to wake again,
    Who held the end was Death. He opens eyes
Slowly, to one long living oozing plain
    Closed down by the strange eyeless heavens. He lies;
    And waits; and once in timeless sick surmise
Through the dead air heaves up an unknown hand,
Like a dry branch. No life is in that land,
    Himself not lives, but is a thing that cries;
An unmeaning point upon the mid; a speck
    Of moveless horror; an Immortal One
Cleansed of the world, sentient and dead; a fly
    Fast-stuck in grey sweat on a corpse’s neck.

I thought when love for you died, I should die.
It’s dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on.

This poem is in the public domain.