[DON’T WAIT.]
If you have gentle words and looks, my friends,
To spare for me—if you have tears to shed
That I have suffered—keep them not, I pray,
Until I hear not, see not, being dead.
For loving looks, though fraught with tenderness,
And kindly tears, though they fall thick and fast,
And words of praise, alas! can naught avail
To lift the shadows from a life that’s past?
And rarest blossoms, what can they suffice,