Net mear brûkt begraafplak
Hjir komme libbenen noch gear,
Benijd wat tekst de sarken ha;
Wa’t libbet, wol hjir bêst nei ta,
Mar deaden lûkt dit plak net mear.
De rigels sprekke, sizze froed:
‘Dy’t libben komme, geandefoet
Te sarkelêzen, even, hjoed,
Dy komme moarn wer – dea, foargoed.’
Al rymje sy oer dea sa wis,
De stiennen merke dochs wat mist:
Gjin minske dy’t hjir dea noch komt.
Wêr skrillet men dan foar werom?
Wurdt no de sarken snoad ferklearre:
Net ien ferstoar foar syn plezier,
Dat men hold op, foargoed, mei stjerren –
Grif hâlde sy dy bluf foar wier.
In a Disused Graveyard
The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never any more the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
“The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay.”
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can’t help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
Ut New Hampshire, 1923