The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar/To A Dead Friend

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

TO A DEAD FRIEND

It is as if a silver chord
  Were suddenly grown mute,
And life's song with its rhythm warred
  Against a silver lute.

It is as if a silence fell
  Where bides the garnered sheaf,
And voices murmuring, "It is well,"
  Are stifled by our grief.

It is as if the gloom of night
  Had hid a summer's day,
And willows, sighing at their plight,
  Bent low beside the way.

For he was part of all the best
  That Nature loves and gives,
And ever more on Memory's breast
  He lies and laughs and lives.