A few short years, I’ve ever said,
I have to claim ere I am dead:
A so-short span so all my own
To build a life with honor blown,
Or infamy perhaps, instead.
I have the choice to either wed;
I have a chance to make my bed,
To reap a harvest I’ll have sown
A few short years.
Years later: “How the time has flown.
I hear the ghastly overtone
Of Death. Keep down your hasty head;
Begone with your abortive tread.”
And the wind, or Death, do I hear moan–
“A few short years!”
by Ray Romine Monday, January 3, 1944
