Penny Dreadfuls, 1812 · page 187 of 258
Psyche, and other poems — page 187: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a poetry page from a Victorian penny dreadful (page 169). The heading "TO DEATH" introduces a dramatic verse addressed directly to Death as a personified force. The poem employs Gothic melodrama typical of the genre, depicting death through vivid imagery—sudden arrows in midnight silence, a suspended javelin over a dying person surrounded by weeping relatives. The speaker agonizes over whether Death will strike swiftly or slowly strip away life's pleasures before claiming the soul, ultimately resigned to accepting death when all loved things are lost. The florid, anguished tone and supernatural personification are characteristic of sensational Victorian literature.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
169 TO DEATH. | % O THOU most terrible, most dreaded power, In whatsoever form thou meetest the eye! Whether thou biddest thy sudden arrow fly In the dread silence of the midnighthour; —_ ‘Or whether, hovering o’er the lingering wretch Thy sad cold javelin hangs suspended long, While round the couch the weeping kindred throng With hope and fear alternately on stretch ; Ob, say, for me what horrors are prepared 2 Am I now doomed to meet thy fatal arm? Or wilt thou first from life steal every charm, And bear away each good my soul would guard? That thus, deprived of all it loved, my heart From life itself contentedly may part. Connicloooks.comn)