On that cold table, where shameless, without blushing

They spread their nakedness,

I see what yesterday had been a living beauty

And is to-day a corpse—

A flimsy mass of tissues and of juices,

The prey of autopsy to-day,

To-morrow prey of worms and dissolution.

And whilst the perfume of this lifeless flower,

Concoction made of chemicals and death,

Inflicts an outrage on my sense of odor,

Does disenchantment fill me with disgust?

Does Death’s black wing engulf me in its shadow?

And being face to face with life’s fragility

Am I made sick of life?

I am not sick of life.

I prize life more knowing how brief it is,

How insecure, how fragile and how fleeting.

I love the eyes bright with the spark of life,

I love them more knowing they’ll soon be dimmed.

I love the lips aglow with warmth of life,

I love them more because they’ll soon be cold.

I love all flesh that palpitates with life,

I love it more knowing it soon shall be

An inert, flimsy mass of fetid tissue.

I love the voice that rings with sounds of life,

I love it more knowing ’twill soon be silent.

I love the mind pregnant with living thought,

I love it more knowing that soon ’twill be

The tomb of thought.

I therefore let the dead bury their dead,

And like a buzzing bee in quest of flowers

I seek the flowers of life that gladly yield

The sap that love distills to joy—that joy

That is much sweeter than the sweetest honey.