The candle of daylight wearied and waned,
And labour's veins were into stillness drained;
As Sun was summoned to the rising west,
I softly stood beside your earthly rest.

Reposed within a distant deep of green,
From the ravenous ken of Man unseen;
Where the land draws her light and languid breath,
And grey garlands of rock and sky bound her breadth.
                                                        ­                               Decayed and lifeless, between dead hands wrought,
A humble stone revealed your humble plot;
No treasure-fraught barrow, no marble vault,
Did laud your life, nor lament at its halt.

Now withered and gone was the hand that made,
In Lethe had foundered the mind that bade,
The heart, that yearned in fleeting years of yore,
Had burst, as a wave on an endless shore.

A drowsy darkness now had deftly crept,
As heaven turned her sable cheek, and wept
Countless crystal tears, while wispy winds blew,
Painting the night in their hoary hue

But what will I from my winters bequeath,
When December’s dainty snows dust my wreath?
In radiant dawn is born each plain day,
Till the murk of midnight mists shroud them away.