WHY DID YOU GO? a poem

Man and Woman on the Beach (1893) and Edwardian Woman on the Beach (1900)
by Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Wikimedia Commons

DEATH called,—but why did you go?
     Did you not know
That life is better than death,
That snatches the breath
Out of joy?—that love is better than death?

     Did you not understand
     How guarded the Land
Where death leads?—that howe'er the heart yearn,
One may never return
     From the gloom
Of that dwelling-place lone that doth hold and entomb?

     O my sweet!
Might I follow your feet,—
Afar from the sun and the bloom-scented air,
     I would open once more
     The inexorable door,
And drink of dark Lethe, your prison to share!

"Why Did You Go?" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume I.