Epistle No 81

Mark how our shadow, Mark Movits mom frere

One small darkness encloses

How gold and purple that shovel there

To rags and rubbish disposes



Charon beckons from tumultuous waves

Then trice this ancient digger of graves

For thee ne'er grapeskin shall glister

A gravestone over our sister



Even desirous and modest adobe

Under the sighing branches

Where time and death, a marriage forebode

Twixt beauty and ugliness ashes



To thee ne'er jealousy findeth her way

Nor happiness footstep, swift to stray

Flitteth amid these barrows

E'en enmity armed, as thou seest this day

Piously breaketh her arrow



The little bell echoes the great bells groan

Robed in the door the precentor

Noisome with quiristers prayerful moan

Blesses those, who enter



The way to this templed city of tombs

Climbs amid roses yellowing blooms

Fragments of mouldering biers

'Til black-clad each mourner,

His station assumes

Bows there deeply in tears