In some few years, when you and I--
Perhaps in some few months--shall lie,
Where lie at last everyone must,
Little will it approve our dust
That one shall write above our tombs:
"They gave their days to glums and glooms."
Much rather had I someone said:
"They loved to wantonness, these dead."
"They kissed too much," I'd have one say,
"Until they kissed their souls away.
Still they were young, and, lip to lip,
They found a way to make Time skip;
And they were bold enough to find
A way to brave him, mind to mind;
And sometimes, by their deadly art,
They caught and crushed him, heart to heart."
This elegy methinks becomes
Us better than our glooms and glums.
1915.