When All Is Done

When all is done, and my last word is said,
And ye who loved me murmur, "He is
       dead,"
Let no one weep, for fear that I should know,
And sorrow too that ye should sorrow so.

When all is done and in the oozing clay,
Ye lay this cast-off hull of mine away,
Pray not for me, for, after long despair,
The quiet of the grave will be a prayer.

For I have suffered loss and grievous pain,
The hurts of hatred and the world's disdain,
And wounds so deep that love, well-tried and
       pure,
Had not the power to ease them or to cure.

When all is done, say not my day is o'er,
And that through night I seek a dimmer shore;
Say rather that my morn has just begun,--
I greet the dawn and not a setting sun,
          When all is done.

--Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906