LYCIDAS TO MILTON.
(1637.)
The flowers that we lay upon a tomb
Are withered by the morrow,—ere the crowd
Which for a moment ceased its hum, and bowed
Its head, as Death flew by and made a gloom,
Resumes its whirl. And scarcely longer bloom
The sculptured wreaths with which a tomb more proud,
In some pale minster, may have been endowed;
For marble petals share the common doom.
But thou canst twine the wreaths that never die;
And something tells me thou wilt stay behind
When I am gone; I know it, I know not why.
The sea-gull's scream, the wailing of the wind,
The ocean's roar, sound like Death's prophecy:
I fain would have a garland thou hadst twined.
