Grief, loss, and poetry

[stef_tm]

(from a FB update)

In the last twenty-four hours I have heard news of loss and portends of loss.



I find poems soothing and this poem today fulfilled its role



We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths

by Philip James Bailey



We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest:

Lives in one hour more than in years do some

Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins.

Life's but a means unto an end; that end,

Beginning, mean, and end to all things—God.

The dead have all the glory of the world.