Cold Gray Sky

This is a found poem I created after reading Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Throughout the novel, there are many wonderfully composed sentences exhibiting poetic magnificence. Stowe is unappreciated for her ability as an artist, and is usually viewed only as a writer of a sentimental, "protest novel." But, to me, her work seems to be so carefully, poetically crafted, that it has somewhat of a Shakespearean effect on the reader. The quotes are taken from chapters 26 and 28, "Death" and "Reunion," two of the most tragic and compelling chapters in the novel. "DEATH!" Strange that there should be such a word, And such a thing, And we ever forget it; That one should be living, Warm and beautiful, Full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, And the next be gone, Utterly gone, And forever! O, woe for them who watched thy entrance into heaven, When they shall wake and find only The cold gray sky of daily life, And thou gone forever! Still must we eat, And drink, And sleep, And wake again,-- Still bargain, Buy, Sell, Ask and answer questions,-- Pursue, in short, a thousand shadows, Though all interest in them be over; The cold mechanical habit of living remaining, After all vital interest in it has fled.