Classic Poem

And did you know our old friend
Death is dead?
Ah me! he died last night; my ghost was there,
And all his phantom-friends from everywhere
Were sorrowfully grouped about his bed.
" I die; God help the living now! " he said
With such a ghastly pathos, I declare
The tears oozed from the blind eyes of the air
And spattered on his face in gouts of red.
And then he smiled — the dear old bony smile
That glittered on us in that crazy whim
When first our daring feet leapt the defile
Of life and ran so eagerly to him:
And so he smiled upon us, even while
The kind old sockets grew forever dim.