1   When Time, or soon or late, shall bring      The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,   Oblivion! may thy languid wing      Wave gently o’er my dying bed! 2   No band of friends or heirs be there,      To weep, or wish, the coming blow:   No maiden, with dishevelled hair,      To feel, or feign, decorous woe. 3   But silent let me sink to earth,      With no officious mourners near:   I would not mar one hour of mirth,      Nor startle friendship with a tear. 4   Yet Love, if Love in such an hour      Could nobly check its useless sighs,   Might then exert its latest power      In her who lives, and him who dies. 5   ’Twere sweet, my Psyche! to the last      Thy features still serene to see:   Forgetful of its struggles past,      E’en Pain itself should smile on thee. 6   But vain the wish—for Beauty still      Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath;   And women’s tears, produced at will,      Deceive in life, unman in death. 7   Then lonely be my latest hour,      Without regret, without a groan?   For thousands Death hath ceas’d to lower,      And pain been transient or unknown. 8   “Ay, but to die, and go,” alas!      Where all have gone, and all must go!      Ere born to life and living woe! 9   Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,      Count ’er thy days from anguish free,   And know, whatever thou hast been,      ’Tis something better not to be.