Vixit

NURSE not your grief, nor make obsequious moan
    When I have shed this flesh I love so well,
    Nor slowly toll the dull heart-bruising knell,
Nor carve my name in customary stone;
But let the generous earth reclaim her own—
    And my usurious profit who can tell?
    Dash tears aside, let joy resume her spell;
Stars glitter where the storm is overblown.

Because I have lived I would not have one say:
    “Here long ago a man of such a name
Was left to moulder in his pit of clay.”
    Let only love remember how I came
And built an earthen altar in my day
    And lit thereon a comfortable flame.

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