Sonnet: “Yea, Love is strong as life”

(Suggested by Mr. Watts’s Picture of Love and Death) YEA, Love is strong as life; he casts out fear, And wrath, and hate, and all our envious foes; He stands upon the threshold, quick to close The gate of happiness ere should appear Death’s dreaded presence—ay, but Death draws near, And large and gray the towering outline grows, Whose face is veiled and hid; and yet Love knows Full well, too well, alas! that Death is here. Death tramples on the roses; Death comes in, Though Love, with outstretched arms and wings outspread, Would bar the way—poor Love, whose wings begin To droop, half-torn as are the roses dead Already at his feet—but Death must win, And Love grows faint beneath that ponderous tread!