Alexander Anderson

* * *

If any song that I have sung
 Should rest a moment on the lips,
Or linger kindly on the tongue
 Of friends, when death, whose finger tips

Creep over mouths of men, has set
 His icy touch against my own,
And I have passed beyond the fret
 Of life, and am no longer known

Or seen within the simple street,
 Or by the meadows and the rills;
But sunk within the past, as fleet
 As shadows fade among the hills.

If such a song should linger still
 On lips behind me, let it be
A voice that wakens at its will,
 And, singing, brings no thought of me.