My darlings, sometime I shall play
A strange game with you, strange to see.
What day it shall be, my chicks, I can't say,
But we're sure to play it some day,
Some day after sunset maybe.
It's a wily game, old folks' game,
With children your size, with a girl just like you,
A menials' game and masters' game,
For dogs and for birds and for flowers the same,
And each one can play it so true.
We shall love one another with lasting love,
Gathered at table all in good cheer
Under the tents of Our Lord above,
And one day the leg will fail to move,
The hand will go limp, the eye will go stale, the tongue will go sear.
Gently the game does begin, like a breeze.
I shall laugh and fall silent that day,
I shall go and lie down on the ground,
I shall lie there and utter no sound,
By the tree, let us say.
It is the game of the Holy Writ.
Our Lord Jesus Christ played it too.
And others who in a cold or feverish fit,
With a few spasms did quit
The game, in all fairness, as due.
And when they have taken and borne me away,
Don't heave a sore sigh with each breath.
They'll give me a burial, as they say,
In the hard or the loosened clay.
Such is the game, it commences with death.
Seeing that Lazarus once rose too,
Just don't you grieve and just wait
As if nothing has happened to rue,
Nothing odd, nothing new.
There I shall think of our game among many a mate.
Your Dad has seen to your keep,
He has left you barns and oxen and cows,
A pasture and hovels and sheep
For you, when in need, just to reap
And have food in the house.
Each shall rise from the dead some day,
Each shall return to his children then,
To his wife, who weeps as she spins away,
To the heifers and ewes and the hay,
As do all living and thrifty men.
You just grow up in good health, my sons,
Sturdy and sprightly and full of glow,
As the custom of our forefathers runs.
To begin with, my dearest ones,
Dad will be absent for a month or so.
Then there'll be a delay,
And another, and still another.
Dad will have no strength, they'll say,
To travel on foot all the way
From that world, from the other.
And you've grown full-fledged in your nests,
You've done well in your lives
And done well in your scholarly quests.
Mother is knitting hoses and vests
And father no longer arrives.
My chicks, my pets, my honey bees!
Such is the game, and we must have it.
It is played in twos or in threes,
It is played in as many as you please
The blazes burn it!
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