Epigraph
Is he gone to a land of no laughter—
This man that made mirth for us all?
Proves Death but a silence hereafter,
Where the echoes of earth cannot fall?
Once closed, have the lips no more duty?
No more pleasure the exquisite ears?
Has the heart done o’erflowing with beauty,
As the eyes have with tears?
Nay, if aught be sure, what can be surer
Than that earth’s good decays not with earth?
And of all the heart’s springs none are purer
Than the springs of the fountains of mirth?
He that sounds them has pierced the heart’s hollows,
The places where tears are and sleep;
For the foam-flakes that dance in life’s shallows
Are wrung from life’s deep.
J. RHOADES