the best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
and bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
the heroes of old,
bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
the black minute's at end,
and the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
shall dwindle, shall blend,
shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
and with God be the rest!
--From the poem "Prospice,"* by Robert Browning (1812-1889)
*Prospice is Latin, imperative, for "look forward"
