Poems (Allen)/The City of the Living

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

THE CITY OF THE LIVING.

N a long-vanished age, whose varied story
  No record has to-day,—
So long ago expired its grief and glory,—
  There flourished, far away,

In a broad realm, whose beauty passed all measure,
  A city fair and wide,
Wherein the dwellers lived in peace and pleasure,
  And never any died.

Disease and pain and death, those stern marauders,
  Which mar our world's fair face,
Never encroached upon the pleasant borders
  Of that bright dwelling-place.

No fear of parting and no dread of dying
  Could ever enter there;
No mourning for the lost, no anguished crying
  Made any face less fair.

Without the city's walls death reigned as ever,
  And graves rose side by side;
Within, the dwellers laughed at his endeavor,
  And never any died.

O happiest of all earth's favored places!
  O bliss, to dwell therein!—
To live in the sweet light of loving faces,
  And fear no grave between!

To feel no death-damp, gathering cold and colder,
  Disputing life's warm truth,—
To live on, never lonelier or older,
  Radiant in deathless youth!

And hurrying from the world's remotest quarters
  A tide of pilgrims flowed
Across broad plains and over mighty waters,
  To find that blest abode,

Where never death should come between, and sever
  Them from their loved apart,—
Where they might work, and win, and live forever,
  Still holding heart to heart.

And so they lived, in happiness and pleasure,
  And grew in power and pride,
And did great deeds, and laid up stores of pleasure,
  And never any died.

And many years rolled on, and saw them striving
  With unabated breath;
And other years still found and left them living,
  And gave no hope of death.

Yet listen, hapless soul whom angels pity,
  Craving a boon like this,—
Mark how the dwellers in the wondrous city
  Grew weary of their bliss.

One and another, who had been concealing
  The pain of life's long thrall,
Forsook their pleasant places, and came stealing
  Outside the city wall,

Craving, with wish that brooked no more denying,
  So long had it been crossed,
The blessed possibility of dying,—
  The treasure they had lost.

Daily the current of rest-seeking mortals
  Swelled to a broader tide,
Till none were left within the city's portals,
  And graves grew green outside.

Would it be worth the having or the giving,
  The boon of endless breath?
Ah, for the weariness that comes of living
  There is no cure but death!

Ours were indeed a fate deserving pity,
  Were that sweet rest denied;
And few, methinks, would care to find the city
  Where never any died!