Dear Ivy, wilt thou cover me
Upon this bed of death?
Would’st thou stand above my name
For I have not the breath
To say or speak of who I was
Unto the living there
If thou would thus embrace my stone
Then some may stop and stare
To look upon thy beauty
Wondering at thy bloom
That thou art young and tender green
And will not die too soon
Then, by chance, they just might read
My epitaph and cry
Wondering who I really was before I had to die
For oft the people of the day
Go by with little care
And fail to learn the history
Of the people lying here
Who we were, the things we did
Before we left the earth
What events surrounded us
In the years that followed birth
What we learned from our own trials
What caused the world to change
What we left the future world
To sort and rearrange
All before we came to lie
In this crowded vast estate
Until the world has run its course
And man has earned his fate
So dear Ivy, embrace me
Beckon passers-by
So they may know who I became
Before I had to die
