Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Poems. XV. “If I Believed in Death, How Sweet a Bed”Frances Anne Kemble (1809–1893)
I
For such a blessèd slumber could I find,
Beneath the blue and sparkling coverlid
Of that smooth sea, stirred by no breath of wind.
Oh if I could but die, and be at rest,
Thou smiling sea! in thy slow-heaving breast.
Immortal, woful, of one human soul;
Under thy sapphire vault, cold, still, and dark,
Deep down, below where tides and tempests roll,
The spirit may not lose its deeper curse,
It finds no death in the whole universe.