Patience, my eager granite, wait

        Patience, my eager granite, wait.

         Suffice for now to list my birth.

         That space for when I leave this earth

         Reserve, I need not know the date.

         Blessed are they who have no stones

         To chide them of life’s bounded course.

         Must I a somber life enforce

         Before they burn my wretched bones?

         No; soon will I with my love lie

         Whose ashes are herein interred.   

        ‘Til then by grief my life’s deferred,

         And for how long? I can’t descry.

         Perhaps once all the tears are done

         And thoughts of her don’t choke my breath  

         I’ll be then free enough of death

        To stop subtracting days by one.