I see you did not try to save,
The bouquet of white flowers I gave;
So fast they wither on your grave.
Why does it hurt the heart to think
Of that most bitter abrupt brink
Where the low-shouldered coffins sink.
These living bodies that we wear
So change by every seventh year
That in a new dress we appear;
Limbs, spongy brain and slogging heart,
No part remains the selfsame part;
Like streams they stay and still depart.
You slipped slow bodies in the past;
Then why should we be so aghast
You flung off the whole flesh at last?
Let him who loves you think instead
That like a woman who has wed
You undressed first and went to bed.
From: http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/passing-graveyard
Date: 1948
By: Andrew John Young (1885-1971)
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