Unavailing

"Never," you said, "never this side the grave,
And what shall come hereafter, who may know?
Whether we e'en shall guess the way we go,
Passing beneath Death's mystic architrave

Silence or song, dumb sleep or cheerful hours?"
O lady, you have questioned, answer too.
You--you to die--silence and gloom for you:
Dead song, dead lights, dead graces, and dead flowers?

It is not so: the foolish trivial end,
The inconsequent paltry Nothing--gone--gone all;
The genius of the ageless Something spend

Itself within this little earthly wall:
The commonplace conception, that we reap
Reward of drudge and ploughman--idle sleep!