Poems (Mary Coleridge)/Poem 214

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CCXIV
I envy not the dead that rest,
 The souls that sing and fly;
Not for the sake of all the Blest,
 Am I content to die.

If ever men were laid in earth,
 And might in earth repose,
Where spirits have no second birth—
 Those, those, I envy, those.

My being would I gladly give,
 Rejoicing to be freed;
But if for ever I must live,
 Then let me live indeed.

What peace could ever be to me
 The joy that strives with strife?
What blissful immortality
 So sweet as struggling life?

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