TO TED KENNEDY, in restless peace, 8/25/09

"All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors."

"How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of th is fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!"

"I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

"Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoofbeats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."

"He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle call,
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent."

"I do not know; nor will I vainly question
Those pages of the mystic books which hold
The story still untold,
But without rash conjecture or suggestion
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,
Until ‘The End’ I read."

"The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heat,
When the full river of feeling overflows;"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has said everything in and about life and death better than you.