Though your bones will turn to dust

There is still time to love and lust

Though your muscles soon will rot

And memory will slip away

The spinning of no wheel will leave you cold.

The proud, the strong, the brave, the bold

Wander still this rotten earth

And though you might measure life

In quarter or half centuries,

There is solace yet for both the bowed and unbent.

Some, they yearn to win just once,

But loss is real.

To count the cost is revelry

And the butcher’s bill is liberating

Even when the aching fills the days

And nights go by, longer now.