Classic Poem

We found him sleeping in the drifted snow
Beside his buried but still breathing ewes.
'Tis rarely granted any man to know
And find unsought the death that he would choose;
Yet he who'd always laboured among sheep
Since he could walk, and who had often said
That death should find him working, stumbled dead
Succouring his flock, and by them fell asleep.

Spare sinewy body with brown knotted hands,
Lean weathered face and eyes that burned so clear
From gazing ever through the winds that blow
Over wide grassy spaces, one who stands
Beside you, quiet on your hurdle-bier,
Envies your hard-earned death amid the snow.