Sow the Way with Flowers

OH, strew the way with rosy flowers,
And dupe with smiles thy grief and gloom,
For tarnished leaves and songless hours

Await thee in the tomb.
Lo! in the brilliant festal hall

How lightly Youth and Beauty tread!
Yet, gaze again — the grass is tall

Above their charnel bed I

In blaze of noon the jewelled bride

Before the altar plights her faith:
Ere weep the skies of eventide

Her eyes are dulled in death!
Then sigh no more — if Life is brief

So are its woes; and why repine?
Pavilioned by the linden leaf

"We'll quaff the chaliced wine.

Wild music from the nightingale
Comes floating on the loaded breeze,

To mingle in the bowery vale

With hum of summer bees:
Then taste the joys that GOD bestows —

The beaded wine, the faithful kiss,
For while the tide of Pleasure flows,

Death bares his black abyss.

In vain the zephyr's breath perfumes

The House of Death — in vain its tones
Shall mourn at midnight round the tombs

Where sleep our blackening bones.
The starbright bowl is broken there,

The witchery of the lute is o'er,
And — wreck of wrecks! — there lie the Fair,

Whose beauty wins no more!