As we the withered ferns By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns All our prayers and prying -- All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe -- All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns, Age and death defying, Till at last it learns All but Love is dying; Love's the trade we're plying, God has willed it so; Shrouds are what we're buying For friends that come and go. Man forever yearns For the thing that's flying. Everywhere he turns, Men to dust are drying, -- Dust that wanders, eying (With eyes that hardly glow) New faces, dimly spying For friends that come and go. ENVOY And thus we all are nighing The truth we fear to know: Death will end our crying For friends that come and go. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EXODUS FOR OREGON by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER MONDAY'S CHILD by MOTHER GOOSE REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE by SIEGFRIED SASSOON THE MOCKING-BIRD by FRANK LEBBY STANTON THE NATURAL FIRE by CLIFFORD ALLEN THE APOLOGY OF THE BISHOPS IN ANSWER TO BONNER'S GHOST by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |