Classic Poem

This feather that is theirs to blow upon:
A pretty plaything known to each as breath,
This will be lost when the ample wind of death
Fans it along into an unlit dawn.
Yet why should there be care? Why need a wan
Hand supplicate, lest it be snatched too soon?
Why, like a fog, should chill fall on the noon
Because a feather dances and is gone?

The sun is in the sky. The distances:
The panting south, bright north, the east and west,
Are tonic for the lips, and there is strength
For limbs aspiring to such heights as these;
And there is laughter for the leaping breast
For all it lie unhumorous at length.