My days are but the tombs of buried hours; Which tombs are hidden in the piled years; But from the mounds there spring up many flowers, Whose beauty well repays their cost of tears. Time, like a sexton, pileth mould on mould, Minutes on minutes till the tombs are high; But from the dust there fall some grains of gold, And the dead corpse leaves what will never die— It may be but a thought, the nursling seed Of many thoughts, of many a high desire; Some little act that stirs a noble deed, Like breath rekindling a smouldering fire: They only live who have not lived in vain, For in their works their life returns again.
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