More diverse versifying diversion

In these somber times, with no real definitively positive or even politically non-comical 'news', I think verse (imperfect as mine may be), rather than the appropriate and well-deserved scolding satire, is what we may need.  It can at least distract us from what we can't help not being distracted from.  So here are some thoughts, perhaps not too grim, of that rhythmic sort:

In the grave reposing

Wherefore would’st thou stay interred

When glee and gambol make the day;

Your sullen mood must be inferred

When you’re so down, so far away!

The pleasures found up here on earth

The dances, games, and hearty cheer

Make rising up the effort worth

Since life entombed’s so very drear.

Play makes the somber spirit rise

And laughter ashen visage glow

While shaking off death’s sullen sighs

It smoothes away the morbid brow:

Thus can one have of earthly reverie a spell

Escaping from the tomb’s remorseless silent knell



And, for good (or bad) measure, in our hard times, another:

The gravestones stayed grave

(A springtime stroll in the old Montague graveyard

holding some of Anne’s ancestors)

Warmed were the stones we strolled through,

  On this summery afternoon,

Yet our forebears sleeping in their tombs

  Seemed not to sense the date:

The season bright had now begun,

  With flowers fresh in bloom,

But instead of celebrating,

  They slept silently in state!