by Luis G. Dato
With the dead shroud of past days to my face,
I find but solitude upon the way,
With Memory’s light to guide my pen I trace
This, lest today forget its yesterday.
As surely as the rose that we hold dear,
In after-time my verse should you remind
Of days when we were young, and deem there here,
As in the rose the long ago we find.
What though the call of cold earth I should hear
To bid me find in death the heart’s repose?
Still would you be unto the last held dear,
And, finding grief, would reckon that no loss.
Youth will not love so brief, so less, but long
And much, by fate , and why, we cannot know,
Time takes from Life all grief to make it strong,
And memory smiles at an unkept vow.
