TILL death have broken Sweet life's love-token, Till all be spoken That shall be said, What dost thou praying, O soul, and playing With song and saying, Things flown and fled For this we know not -- That fresh springs flow not And fresh grief grows not When men are dead; When strange years cover Lover and lover, And joys are over And tears are shed. If one day's sorrow Mar the day's morrow -- If man's life borrow And man's death pay -- If souls once taken, If lives once shaken, Arise, awaken, By night, by day -- Why with strong crying And years of sighing, Living and dying, Fast ye and pray? For all your weeping, Waking and sleeping; Death comes to reaping And takes away. Though time rend after Roof-tree from rafter, A little laughter Is much more worth Than thus to measure The hour, the treasure, The pain, the pleasure, The death, the birth; Grief, when days alter, Like joy shall falter; Song-book and psalter, Mourning and mirth. Live like the swallow; Seek not to follow Where earth is hollow Under the earth. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FIGHTING RACE [FEBRUARY 16, 1898] by JOSEPH IGNATIUS CONSTANTINE CLARKE SIX TOWN ECLOGUES: SATURDAY; THE SMALL-POX by MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU ALEC YEATON'S SON; GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE ROSEBUSH AND THE TRINITY by ALFRED BARRETT SONG, FR. THE LOVER'S PROGRESS by FRANCIS BEAUMONT |