Published Works
In Whitman's Hand
Life & Letters
Commentary
Resources
Pictures & Sound
About the Archive
Poems in Periodicals
Poems
page image 1 |
cropped image |
From the Democratic Review.
O, Death! a black and pierceless pall
Hangs round thee, and the future state;
No eye may see, no mind may grasp
That mystery of Fate.
This brain, which now alternate throbs
With swelling hope and gloomy fear;
This heart, with all the changing hues,
That mortal passions bear—
This curious frame of human mould,
Where unrequited cravings play,
This brain, and heart, and wondrous form
Must all alike decay.
The leaping blood wili stop its flow;
The hoarse death-struggle pass; the cheek
Lay bloomless, and the liquid tongue
Will then forget to speak.
The grave will take me; earth will close
O'er cold dull limbs and ashy face;
But where, O, Nature, where shall be
The soul's abiding place?
Will it e'en live? for though its light
Must shine till from the body torn;
Then, when the oil of life is spent,
Still shall the taper burn?
O, powerless is this struggling brain
To rend the mighty mystery;
In dark, uncertain awe it waits
The common doom, to die.
Time to Come.
BY WALTER WHITMAN.O, Death! a black and pierceless pall
Hangs round thee, and the future state;
No eye may see, no mind may grasp
That mystery of Fate.
This brain, which now alternate throbs
With swelling hope and gloomy fear;
This heart, with all the changing hues,
That mortal passions bear—
This curious frame of human mould,
Where unrequited cravings play,
This brain, and heart, and wondrous form
Must all alike decay.
The leaping blood wili stop its flow;
The hoarse death-struggle pass; the cheek
Lay bloomless, and the liquid tongue
Will then forget to speak.
The grave will take me; earth will close
O'er cold dull limbs and ashy face;
But where, O, Nature, where shall be
The soul's abiding place?
Will it e'en live? for though its light
Must shine till from the body torn;
Then, when the oil of life is spent,
Still shall the taper burn?
O, powerless is this struggling brain
To rend the mighty mystery;
In dark, uncertain awe it waits
The common doom, to die.
Copy-text
Our transcription is based on a digital image of an original issue.
Publication Information
"Time to Come."
The New York Aurora
9 April 1842:
[1].
Revised version of "Our Future Lot," which first appeared in the Long-Islander sometime before 31 October 1838 (the relevant copies of the Long-Islander are no longer extant). More specific information about the Long-Islander printing is unknown at this time. "Our Future Lot" was reprinted in the Long Island Democrat on 31 October 1838. When published as "Time to Come" in the Aurora, the poem appeared with the notation "From the Democratic Review." To date, however, we have not been able to verify that it was originally published there.
Notes
In its first printing, "Time to Come" included a typographical error in the first line of the fourth stanza, where the poem reads "wili" instead of "will."
Whitman Archive ID
per.00057