My days are but the tombs of buried hours;
Which tombs are hidden in the pilèd years;
But from the mounds there spring up many flowers,
Whose beauty well repays their cost of tears.
Time, like a sexton, pileth mould on mould,
Minutes on minutes till the tombs are high;
But from the dust there fall some grains of gold,
And the dead corpse leaves what will never die—
It may be but a thought, the nursling seed
Of many thoughts, of many a high desire;
Some little act that stirs a noble deed,
Like breath rekindling a smouldering fire:
They only live who have not lived in vain,
For in their works their life returns again.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED,
GUILDFORD AND ESHER
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