Now lying here all beat to pulp and red
I do suppose it’s time to join those rows
Of stones that line the church's lawn of dead.
You know I thought with woe this would be fraught,
But it’s not quite so bad if you just lay
And wait for death to take your final breath,
Thus I would willing’ go from all life's gay
If I were sure of Sophie's steady purr.
Yet still in spite, this all is still relief;
It’s good to know that all my cares will go;
Will melt as too will life's relentless grief .
Yet death you still do steal my life with kill,
And make bereft my lips and lungs of breath,
And grieve my wife upon my loss of life,
And bring her sorrow till you bring her death;
Oh wicked thing you are, that death you bring!
Yet thief, I’d go, if you’d but let me smell,
The heavy rains let loose to dig earth’s veins,
And hear as God those bolts and volts impel,
As through the sky the electrons arc so high.
Or walk through green and watered grass in morn,
And soak my feet and feel the earth’s old beat
That all the world and folk are with inborn.
Or taste the breeze that flies from hills and trees,
And see the flowers of the meadow grow,
From nought to fair and so invade the air,
Then see their sorrow with the coming snow,
Thus their red lips decline in winter’s grips.
Yea grant me Sophi’s safety and I’ll go.
Yet more I’ll go with glee from all the woe,
For sick I long ere waxed of all this row.
So grant my last lone wish that I have asked,
And I’ll depart across death’s sea of death,
Where I will ne’er again e’er breathe my breath.
