The Two Terrors

Two terrors fright my soul by night and day: The first is Life, and with her come the years; A weary, winding train of maidens they, With forward-fronting eyes, too sad for tears; Upon whose kindred faces, blank and grey, The shadow of a kindred woe appears. Death is the second terror; who shall say What form beneath the shrouding mantle nears?

Which way she turn, my soul finds no relief, My smitten soul may not be comforted; Alternately she swings from grief to grief, And, poised between them, sways from dread to dread. For there she dreads because she knows; and here, Because she knows not, inly faints with fear.