As we the withered ferns <br />By the roadway lying, <br />Time, the jester, spurns <br />All our prayers and prying -- <br />All our tears and sighing, <br />Sorrow, change, and woe -- <br />All our where-and-whying <br />For friends that come and go. <br /> <br />Life awakes and burns, <br />Age and death defying, <br />Till at last it learns <br />All but Love is dying; <br />Love's the trade we're plying, <br />God has willed it so; <br />Shrouds are what we're buying <br />For friends that come and go. <br /> <br />Man forever yearns <br />For the thing that's flying. <br />Everywhere he turns, <br />Men to dust are drying, -- <br />Dust that wanders, eying <br />(With eyes that hardly glow) <br />New faces, dimly spying <br />For friends that come and go. <br /> <br />ENVOY <br /> <br />And thus we all are nighing <br />The truth we fear to know: <br />Death will end our crying <br />For friends that come and go.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballad-of-dead-friends/
