Ballade of Dead Friends

As we the withered ferns

By the roadway lying,

Time, the jester, spurns

All our prayers and prying —

All our tears and sighing,

Sorrow, change, and woe —

All our where-and-whying

For friends that come and go.

Life awakes and burns,

Age and death defying,

Till at last it learns

All but Love is dying;

Love's the trade we're plying,

God has willed it so;

Shrouds are what we're buying

For friends that come and go.

Man forever yearns

For the thing that's flying.

Everywhere he turns,

Men to dust are drying, —

Dust that wanders, eying

( With eyes that hardly glow )

New faces, dimly spying

For friends that come and go.

And thus we all are nighing

The truth we fear to know:

Death will end our crying

For friends that come and go.