The happy lambs stopped skipping when they came
Where the dead corby lay;
And stood, with wrinkling nostrils and wide eyes
And quivering tails; then quickly turned away,
Again to play.

For what had they to do, they, newly-born,
And tingling life aglow
In little frolic bodies scampering
Among the last wreaths of the winter snow,
With that dead crow?

Oh, could but we, O love, as easily
Turn from the menace of mortality!