Vixit

  Nurse not your grief, nor make obsequious moan
  When I have shed this flesh I love so well,
  Nor slowly toll the dull heart-bruising knell,
  Nor carve my name in customary stone;
  But let the generous earth reclaim her own
  And my usurious profit who can tell?
  Dash tears aside, let joy resume her spell;
  Stars glitter where the storm is overblown.
  Because I have lived I would not have one say:
  “Here long ago a man of such a name
  Was left to moulder in his pit of clay.”
  Let only love remember how I came
  And built an earthen altar in my day
  And lit thereon a comfortable flame.