A Memorial

Let spring be washed away with rain of tears Let winter come with wet soggy eyes It is well today no sun in the sky appears Let mortal mourn where mortal dies For I have lost another friend, and found Another season for all grief That none can shake the dreaded hound Nor yet from sorrow find relief O Angella, Angella, I weep beyond my tears For memories flood here warm With the friendships of our younger years The sweetness that predicted no storm The withering sickness that dries out the soul The cripled days borne with a smile Leaves all fallen and trees like a naked pole The heart here weeping like a child I miss the happy days and the shy flirtations The choir singing and prayers now That does not seem to work again; tensions Before which your faith did not bow While I anxiously I sought the power again. Gone, gone, gone, sunset and sunrise No more to see, no more racing of the rain Death has broken joy and all our ties. We are born to laugh awhile, and then to pass And rare to find for what we came The purpose that is a child's coin in high grass That will not show though we call its name. What then sum and then subtraction of the dust What then this waste of time and us Everything is vain here that we love and trust What this lost of friends and grief of us?