Ode: Intimations of Immortality

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it has been of yore;-
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more!
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.

-William Wordsworth
March, 1802

My Grandma's funeral. As we stood around the gravesite stuff started flying through the air at us as the winds of Hurricane Jeanne approached.

And I'm a poor closer to Wordsworth, but here's my own little doggerel:

We all know this queue
From a pace or two back
Fretting over wearing
'The gray, or the black?'

But oh, to be the one
In lavender today,
Borne by the children
Of her children
With the sun on their faces,
And the winds at their backs.