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Sonnet. Death.

By Thomas Hood

Topics: classic

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh     This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;     That sometime these bright stars, that now reply     In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;     That warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,     And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;     That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite     Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below;     It is not death to know this, - but to know     That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves     In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go     So duly and so oft, - and when grass waves     Over the past-away, there may be then     No resurrection in the minds of men.

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"It is not death, that sometime in a sigh..."

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Author:Thomas Hood

"It is not death, that sometime in a sigh..." by Thomas Hood

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Thomas Hood

About Thomas Hood

Thomas Hood (1799–1845) was an English poet and humorist whose social protest poems "The Song of the Shirt" and "The Bridge of Sighs" drew attention to the plight of the poor. He was also a master of comic verse and wordplay.

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"'Twas in the middle of the night,     To sleep you..."

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