MY DAYS

My days are but the tombs of buried hours;

Which tombs are hidden in the pilèd years;

But from the mounds there spring up many flowers,

Whose beauty well repays their cost of tears.

Time, like a sexton, pileth mould on mould,

Minutes on minutes till the tombs are high;

But from the dust there fall some grains of gold,

And the dead corpse leaves what will never die—

It may be but a thought, the nursling seed

Of many thoughts, of many a high desire;

Some little act that stirs a noble deed,

Like breath rekindling a smouldering fire:

They only live who have not lived in vain,

For in their works their life returns again.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED,

GUILDFORD AND ESHER

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES