They faced the curses and cares of Life,
And how should they fear in Death
The howls of the hoarse hyenas' strife,
Their carrion tainted breath?
Nay, Well-beloved, why shudder and thrill,
When that graveyard meets your view?
Gardens or Rest, or Death if you will,
Are closed for awhile to you.
Safe in your youth, which is my reproach;
I take it to stifle pain,
As men repel the waves that encroach
From stress of the outer Main.
Building a dyke, or a strong sea-wall,
But if this they fail to do,
Collecting wreckage, things slight and small,
For these have their value too.
As massed together in heaps they lie
Resisting the rising tide
And slowly, surely, the waves defy,—
The builders are satisfied.
Thus have I taken your sixteen years
To ward my sorrow away,
And your young eyes that have known no tears
Look gaily over the bay
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