Classic Poem

Dead! You are dead and know it not.
Your eyes of light in dust will rot,
Your rosy lips be death-defiled.
Dead! You are dead, my poor dead child.

Myself I bore you to the tomb
One summer night of dread and doom;
The nightingales were singing drear,
The stars were mourners round your bier.

We passed the wood, where echoing rang
The solemn litanies we sang.
The pines in sable mantles said
Their murmured prayers for the dead.

And when we reached the willow-lake
The dancing elves were all awake,
And from their fairy rings, in woe,
Gazed sadly on us wending slow.

When we came to your grave that waited deep,
The moon climbed down from heaven's steep
And preached a sermon. Sob and groan,
And from afar the church bell's moan.