Duncan Campbell Scott

A Little Song

The sunset in the rosy west
  Burned soft and high;
A shore-lark fell like a stone to his nest
  In the waving rye.

A wind came over the garden beds
  From the dreamy lawn,
The pansies nodded their purple heads,
  The poppies began to yawn.

One pansy said: It is only sleep,
  Only his gentle breath:
But a rose lay strewn in a snowy heap,
  For the rose it was only death.

Heigho, we’ve only one life to live,
  And only one death to die:
Good-morrow, new world, have you nothing to give?--
  Good-bye, old world, good-bye.