The Price

Terrible is the price
Of beginning anew, of birth;
For Death has loaded dice.

Men hurry and hide like mice;
But they cannot evade the Earth,
And Life, Death's fancy price,

A blossom once or twice,
Love lights on Summer's hearth;
But Winter loads the dice.

In jangling shackles of ice,
Ragged and bleeding, Mirth
Pays the Piper's price.

The dance is done in a trice:
Death belts his bony girth;
And struts, and rattles his dice.

Let Virtue play or Vice,
Beside his sombre firth
Life is the lowest price
Death wins with loaded dice.