In the name of absent friends..

[jeanvieve]

A Sad and Graceful Lay


Slow down, you irreverence minstrels!
Your happy gigues are out of tune
Better a sad and graceful lay
Enter my heart, and thence a duet play
My heartstrings sadly pulled to sound
A nostalgic air, and bittersweet
To recall our summer pleasures filled
With joy and friendship
And now, ah, to know the limits
That merry jests are soon to fail and end
Through him we see each day as brief
And time squandered with pettiness to mend
Or cast aside. Yet I’ll not succumb to grief
For fear and sadness only poison time
Which is our most precious gift from heaven
Let us spend it foolishly, smiling, light of heart
With love I’ll light a candle
But never sing Iraes Dei of him
Before the shrine of passing friends
Kept purer than any others know
Within my mind. Nay, see
The joy I shall recall – but sadly sung
For joy is of two parts, and both may
Forever be by memory’s record played
Sweetly, as a sad and graceful lay