Castle Shima

Death often weighs heavier on us by its weight on others and pains us by their pain almost as much as by our own, and sometimes even more.
-- Montaigne

::: Tower View :::
Panegyric
For Clan Roma

The Pallid Wreath by Walt Whitman
Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray
and ashy,
One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play--the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.
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Alone we live and die
We love and fight
Breath after breath
We carry this mortal coil
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