You say she died last night, and was so fair—
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Come, let us sit and talk, and tell me all—
But twenty was she, and such golden hair!
And O to-morrow is her funeral. . . .
Your life goes with her—you are twenty-two?—
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Come, drink this glass, and tell me more of her—
Her hair was gold, you said, her eyes were blue;
She was too young to die, she was too fair.
And all the treasure of her heart and mind
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Rifled and wasted, lost and gone—ah! where?
And all her beauty scattered on the wind,
Like rose-leaves on the garden here and there.
And nought is left for you except to die,
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Or be her pilgrim, till you meet once more;
Hers was the loveliest face under the sky,
Time never made a face like hers before.
Ah! let me go with you, and kneel and pray,
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And take these flowers, sweet as her young breath;
And then, at the sad ending of the day,
Let you and I for her give thanks to Death—
Death that was kind and loved her all too well
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To watch her beauty wither here away,
But took her while she had so sweet a smell,
All in her blossom, like a hawthorn spray.
Death that was kind to her is kind to you:
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Though eighty years shall whiten on your head,
She still shall be the morning and the dew,
And live for ever lovely, being dead.