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.