Should my breath cease with life’s rhythm in the winter frost;
do not mourn beyond the breaking morn’s warm presence
Let the workers carve the earth for my peaceful return
Place me softly in the bowels of mortal cycle’s tide

 
If perchance, you remember me fondly as your friend,
then I have lived in rich fullness that words cannot measure
And to my loved ones, let peace quieten your heavy heart
For in doing so, faith hearkens joy that love has built
 

Bestow on me not the scented vibrant roses,
nor any flower torn from its vital flesh to bloom for you
For my hands cannot caress their delicate beauty
My hidden eyes cannot see their cloaks of splendor

 
Instead, let the men return the black sod o’er my heart,
then supplant their quickening buds in the living soil
just above where my gracious being is laid to rest
Bid farewell, do not tarry in this hour of your grief
 
Go!
 
For in the spring when grass returns in its verdant quilt,
and the blooms of roses gambol with the soft warm breeze,
our memories will whisper through the trill of bluebirds
Death will have no victory o’er life that love has built
 
Now go!
 
Comfort strangers who also hear the funeral bell
Perhaps the ones who've not known to live so full and well