Whose lives were sweet unto themselves a shepherding
Of hopes, ambitions, wonders in a drove
Over the hills of time, that now are graves for burying.
Of all the tenderness that flowed to them,
A milky way streaming from out their mother's breast,
Stars were they to her night, and she the stem
From which they flowered—now barren and left unblessed.
Of all the sparkling kisses that they gave
Spangling a secret radiance on adoring hands,
Now stifled in the darkness of a grave