Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/206

For younger generations of bold thought
To wear their harvest diadem, while we
In the poor-hour-glass of our seventy years
Scarce see the buds of some few plants of hopes,
Ere we are laid beside them, dust to dust.
    Yet whatsoe'er his lot, in that dim age
Of mystery, when the unwrinkled world had drank
No deluge-cup of bitterness, whate'er
Were earth's illusions to his dazzled eye,
Death found him out at last, and coldly wrote,
With icy pen on life's protracted scroll,
Naught but this brief unflattering line—he died.
    Ye gay flower-gatherers on time's crumbling brink,
This shall be said of you, howe'er ye vaunt
Your long to-morrows in an endless line,
Howe'er amid the gardens of your joy
Ye hide yourselves, and bid the pale King pass,
This shall be said of you, at last, he died;
Oh, add one sentence more, he lived to God.