The Unillumined Verge by Robert Bridges.

To a Friend Dying.

Part 1 of 3.

THEY tell you that Death ’s at the turn of the road,
That under the shade of a cypress you ’ll find him,
And, struggling on wearily, lashed by the goad
Of pain, you will enter the black mist behind him.

I can walk with you up to the ridge of the hill,
And we ’ll talk of the way we have come through the valley;
Down below there a bird breaks into a trill,
And a groaning slave bends to the oar of his galley.

You are up on the heights now, you pity the slave—
“Poor soul, how fate lashes him on at his rowing!
Yet it ’s joyful to live, and it ’s hard to be brave
When you watch the sun sink and the daylight is going.”