PASSING THE GRAVEYARD
(Thoughts On Our human Mortality)

I see you did not try to save

The bouquet of white flowers I gave

So fast they wither on your grave.

Why does it hurt the heart to think

Of that most bitter abrupt brink

Where the low-shouldered coffins sink?

These living bodies that we wear,

So change by every seventh year

That in a new dress we appear.

Limbs, spongy brain, and slugging heart

No part remains the self-same part

Like streams they stay and still depart.

You slipped slow bodies in the past,

So why should we be so aghast

We've flung off the whole flesh at last.

Let him who loves you think instead

That, like a woman who has wed,

You undressed first and went to bed.

by

Andrew Young