Sonnet (Suggested by Mr. Watts’s Picture of Love and Death)

Yea, Love is strong as life; he casts out fear,
And wrath, and hate, and all our envious foes;
He stands upon the threshold, quick to close
The gate of happiness ere should appear
Death’s dreaded presence—ay, but Death draws near,
And large and gray the towering outline grows,
Whose face is veil’d and hid; and yet Love knows
Full well, too well, alas! that Death is here.

Death tramples on the roses; Death comes in,
Though Love, with outstretch’d arms and wings outspread,
Would bar the way—poor Love, whose wings begin
To droop, half-torn as are the roses dead
Already at his feet—but Death must win,
And Love grows faint beneath that ponderous tread!