European Elegies/Winter/Funeral song
48.FUNERAL SONG
The years of youth
Speed yearning on;
Hope's happy thoughts
Are hid and gone.
The mind of man
Has many a dream,
But memory's
A misty gleam,
And soon his corpse
Grows stiff and stark
In the cold embrace
Of his clay-bed dark.
The man we mourn,
The monied son
Of a substanced sire,
Too soon is gone.
Swift ships at sea
Set sail for him;
Fat beeves in byre
Brought wealth to brim;
The loveliness
Of a loving wife
Then crowned his joy—
But crushed from life,
He lies behind the graveyard hedge
Bereft of all love's privilege.
Speed yearning on;
Hope's happy thoughts
Are hid and gone.
The mind of man
Has many a dream,
But memory's
A misty gleam,
And soon his corpse
Grows stiff and stark
In the cold embrace
Of his clay-bed dark.
The man we mourn,
The monied son
Of a substanced sire,
Too soon is gone.
Swift ships at sea
Set sail for him;
Fat beeves in byre
Brought wealth to brim;
The loveliness
Of a loving wife
Then crowned his joy—
But crushed from life,
He lies behind the graveyard hedge
Bereft of all love's privilege.
From a Lappish folk-song.