LET it be draped with serge or with brocade, Sad as a bier or merry as a troth, There man's begot, begets, and dreams in sloth, Child, husband, grandsire, wife or virgin maid. Gay or funerëal, with God's water spray'd Under the cross, or blest with palm, there both Begins and ends his life, in its long growth From the first dawn till the last candles fade. Rustic and shuttered, or, sundown or dawning, Flaunting its gold and crimson for an awning, Shapen of rude oak or of sycamore; Happy is he that slumbers without sin In the ancestral bed that, stout and hoar, Bids welcome and farewell to all his kin. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IMPELLED by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON LOHENGRIN; PROEM by EMMA LAZARUS CHILD OF MY HEART by EDWIN MARKHAM DOMESDAY BOOK: ELENOR MURRAY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS KILLED IN ACTION by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE UNDERGRADUATE KILLED IN BATTLE; OXFORD, 1915 by GEORGE SANTAYANA |