Classic Poem

And now I leave thee as a sacred trust,
That common pledge, our children; for this care,
Branded into my dust, yet breathes and lives.
Hereafter thou, their father, take for them
A mother's office; for thy neck must bear
The load of all my loved ones. When thou givest
Thy kisses as they weep, add too their mother's.
Thine is the burden of the household now.
If thou have sorrow, let them see thee not;
Beguile them, when they come, with tearless cheeks
And fond caresses. Be it enough for thee
To weary the long nights with thoughts of me,
And the beholding of my form in dreams,
So, when thou speakest to my sacred shade,
Think thou hast answer to thine every word.
But now, whether it be the door I knew
Open upon an altered wedding-couch,
And a stepmother sit where I sat once,
Speak well, my children, of your father's wife,
And bear her yoke; before your winning ways
It must be that her charmed heart will yield.
Also praise not your mother over much,
For your new parent, matcht with her of old,
Will think scorn of your free and innocent speech —
Or if my shade content him, and he think
My ashes of such price, learn well to mark
The coming of old age, and leave no room
For cares to enter which beset the life
Of single men. The number of the years
Which I have lost, Heaven add unto your days.
And so may Paullus, with my offspring left,
Love to be old. And it is well — for never
Clothed I myself in mourning for a child.
None, none was absent from my funeral rites.
But I have said. Plead for me ye that weep
While grateful Earth pays back the price of life.
Yea, Heaven itself hath opened to the good.
And may my bones, for all that I have wrought,
Ride on triumphant to the fields of rest!