To her side I laughing fell,
there in the violets, and in
the warmth of summers noon.
Love burned in my straining
breast; light reflected in the beauty
of her smile. We ran in that pagan
sunlit idyll; Life, the race and the
scented joy, as we ran in the grass,
in the light, and in laughter. Lovely, she,
in sunlit grace. Our joy the limit of
life and sky.

Still lovely, she, in death, as in life.
Lovely still, as she is laid to her rest,
down among lilies and lilacs and silk,
and amidst the tears of the living, bereft
in their joy, of the life and the youth and
the laughter that was she. I cry out in a
broken voice, "Allele! Remember the joy
and the summer and the wind in the trees!
Remember the long days laughing in the
shade of the oak, of the leaves and the
breeze and the waterfall splashing! Go not
softly into the dark tomorrow. Take your life
with you. Do not end in the darkness, alone,
in the darkness." Whispered the last, voice rough
in sorrow. And I wept, there, in the summers starlit
dark.