Classic Poem

They can have the names and the dates,
It will do them little service.
They can open the locked chest
And steal the wine and the gold.
There is nothing to be said
But this — the clasp of her body
Was better than milk to the child
Or wisdom to the old.

We die with our first breath.
And, if we die, what matter?
There was a ghost in the flesh,
A ghost that went and came.
Though the moon burn like a lamp
It will not be that brightness —
I said her name in my sleep,
Waking, I said her name.