Who will mourn a rodent’s death?
Who will bend heart-strings to raise a strain,
Commemorating the passage of an unknown mouse
To eternal fields and the dusty rest of disintegration?

I shall sing to mark his heart’s last beating;
I will pluck the ghost of his last breath from the air
And bury it with dignity in a hymn
To acknowledge what was his, now alas! revoked.

Do not despise the meanness of his place,
Nor think to regard him condescension,
Nor dare to suppose his portion of no account,
Nor strip him unfeeling of his minute glory.

His nerves’ last firing is like the dying of a star,
His limbs, grown rigid, mime the world’s decay,
His unsouled eyes dictate the puzzle of life’s end,
His finality recalls the secret questions of mortality.

This rogue once flew on wings of shadows,
Darting adventurous from hiding to hiding,
Erecting a home for his kin in laborious nesting,
Warming sons and son’s daughters and their sons with his love.

This noble rascal lived in breakneck boldness,
Life-risk embraced for morsels of fruit and curds,
Supping on scraps ‘neath the menace of capital danger,
Fear his companion, his bread, and his bed of rest.

The ending of this story is the close of a legend,
The silence of his voice is the dying of a song,
A universal hymn whose harmony depended on his part
Is changed to a dirge marking the end of his verse.