IN the garden of death, where the singers whose names are deathless | |
| One with another make music unheard of men, | |
| Where the dead sweet roses fade not of lips long breathless, | |
| And the fair eyes shine that shall weep not or change again. | |
| Who comes now crowned with the blossom of snow-white years? | 5 |
| What music is this that the world of the dead men hears? | |
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| Beloved of men, whose words on our lips were honey, | |
| Whose name in our ears and our fathers’ ears was sweet, | |
| Like summer gone forth of the land his songs made sunny, | |
| To the beautiful veiled bright world where the glad ghosts meet, | 10 |
| Child, father, bridegroom and bride, and anguish and rest, | |
| No soul shall pass of a singer than this more blest. | |
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| Blest for the years’ sweet sake that were filled and brightened, | |
| As a forest with birds, with the fruit and the flower of his song; | |
| For the souls’ sake blest that heard, and their cares were lightened, | 15 |
| For the hearts’ sake blest that have fostered his name so long; | |
| By the living and dead lips blest that have loved his name, | |
| And clothed with their praise and crowned with their love for fame. | |
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| Ah, fair and fragrant his fame as flowers that close not, | |
| That shrink not by day for heat or for cold by night, | 20 |
| As a thought in the heart shall increase when the heart’s self knows not, | |
| Shall endure in our ears as a sound, in our eyes as a light; | |
| Shall wax with the years that wane and the seasons’ chime, | |
| As a white rose thornless that grows in the garden of time. | |
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| The same year calls, and one goes hence with another, | 25 |
| And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet songs’ sake; | |
| The same year beckons, and elder with younger brother | |
| Takes mutely the cup from his hand that we all shall take. | |
| They pass ere the leaves be past or the snows be come; | |
| And the birds are loud, but the lips that outsang them dumb. | 30 |
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| Time takes them home that we loved, fair names and famous, | |
| To the soft long sleep, to the broad sweet bosom of death; | |
| But the flower of their souls he shall not take away to shame us, | |
| Nor the lips lack song for ever that now lack breath. | |
| For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell, | 35 |
| Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we farewell. | |
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