Epitaph

Jonathan Barlow loved wet skies,

And golden leaves on a rollick wind...

The clouds drip damp on his crumbled eyes,

And the storm his roystering dirge hath dinned.

Proud buck rabbits he loved, and the feel

Of a finicky nose that sniffed his hand:

So now they burrow, and crop their meal;

Their fore-paws scatter him up in sand.

He loved old bracken, and now it pushes

Affectionate roots between his bones:

He runs in the sap of the young spring bushes,

— Basks, when a June sun warms the stones.

Jonathan Barlow loved his Connie

Better than beasts, or trees, or rain...

But her ears are shut to her Golden-Johnnie,

And his tap, tap, tap, at her window-pane.