To A Friend Poem by Sacha Hayes O'Grady

On Death's dark path, my friend has gone,
That final road we fear to tread,
Confined to dust, a light which shone
How all too brief, for He is dead.

Now only cloth and bones remain
Beneath that earth, an awful form
Of human fate, where he has lain
Unmoving, whence the gnawing worm

Has conquered his once thinking brain
That died for love; all mortal grief
Was his, whose heart, baptised by pain,
As delicate as any leaf

Once broken from its natal tree,
That felt not those delights of day
As others did who wandered free.
Unceasing time has chased away

Those happy hours we did share,
When youth was strong, and night was deep,
Still murmured through the fragile air
A friendship fate could never keep.

No more the sea will sound for him,
Nor daylight penetrate those eyes,
The wasted moon has died with him,
As constellations fall and rise.

Each year the changing seasons pass,
And still your mother comes to weep,
To grieve on that small plot of grass
In sufference, while yet you sleep.