WHEN I AM DEAD
When I am dead let not your murderous tearsDeface with their slow dropping my sad tombLest your grey head grow greyer for my doomAnd fill its echoing corridors with fears:Your heart that my stone monument appearsWhile yet I live—O give it not to gloomWhen I am dead, but let some joy illume The ultimate Victory that stings and sears.
Already I can hear the stealthy treadOf sorrow breaking through the hush of day;I have no hope you will avert my dread,Too well I know, that soon am mixed with clay,They mourn the body who the spirit slayAnd those that stab the living weep the dead.
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