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 They faced the curses and cares of Life, And how should they fear in Death The howls of the hoarse hyenas' strife, Their carrion tainted breath?

Nay, Well-beloved, why shudder and thrill, When that graveyard meets your view? Gardens or Rest, or Death if you will, Are closed for awhile to you.

Safe in your youth, which is my reproach; I take it to stifle pain, As men repel the waves that encroach From stress of the outer Main.

Building a dyke, or a strong sea-wall, But if this they fail to do, Collecting wreckage, things slight and small, For these have their value too.

As massed together in heaps they lie Resisting the rising tide And slowly, surely, the waves defy,— The builders are satisfied.

Thus have I taken your sixteen years To ward my sorrow away, And your young eyes that have known no tears Look gaily over the bay

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