Ballade of Dead Friends

As we the withered ferns     By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns     All our prayers and prying—     All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe—     All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns.   Age and death defying, Till at last it learns     All but Love is dying;     Love’s the trade we’re plying, God has willed it so;     Shrouds are what we’re buying     For friends that come and go. Man forever yearns     For the thing that ’s flying. Everywhere he turns,     Men to dust are drying,—     Dust that wanders, eyeing (With eyes that hardly glow)     New faces, dimly spying For friends that come and go. ENVOY And thus we all are nighing     The truth we fear to know: Death will end our crying     For friends that come and go.