| |
| WHEN you are dead some day, my dear, | |
| Quite dead and under ground, | |
| Where you will never see or hear | |
| A summer sight or sound, | |
| What shall remain of you in death, | 5 |
| When all our songs to you | |
| Are silent as the bird whose breath | |
| Has sung the summer through? | |
| |
| I wonder, will you ever wake, | |
| And with tired eyes again | 10 |
| Live for your old life’s little sake | |
| An age of joy or pain? | |
| Shall some stern destiny control | |
| That perfect form, wherein | |
| I hardly see enough of soul | 15 |
| To make your life a sin? | |
| |
| For, we have heard, for all men born | |
| One harvest-day prepares | |
| Its golden garners for the corn, | |
| And fire to burn the tares; | 20 |
| But who shall gather into sheaves, | |
| Or turn aside to blame | |
| The poppies’ puckered helpless leaves, | |
| Blown bells of scarlet flame? | |
| |
| No hate so hard, no love so bold | 25 |
| To seek your bliss or woe; | |
| You are too sweet for hell to hold, | |
| And heaven would tire you so. | |
| A little while your joy shall be, | |
| And when you crave for rest | 30 |
| The earth shall take you utterly | |
| Again into her breast. | |
| |
| And we will find a quiet place | |
| For your still sepulchre, | |
| And lay the flowers upon your face | 35 |
| Sweet as your kisses were, | |
| And with hushed voices void of mirth | |
| Spread the light turf above, | |
| Soft as the silk you loved on earth | |
| As much as you could love. | 40 |
| |
| Few tears, but once, our eyes shall shed, | |
| Nor will we sigh at all, | |
| But come and look upon your bed | |
| When the warm sunlights fall. | |
| Upon that grave no tree of fruit | 45 |
| Shall grow, nor any grain, | |
| Only one flower of shallow root | |
| That will not spring again. | |
| |
