Life is short and swift and brief
Here and gone in the twinkling of an eye
It leaves us nothing but our grief
Fleet as moonlight in a star filled sky.
Life is but a tangled knot, it twists and bends
A dream from which we must awake
Where death is but a quick dead end
An unknown path we all must take.
Like the falling of a star
Like the setting of a shining sun
No matter who or what we are
Our death will take us when our day is done.
Like the daylight of high winter
Like a wave upon a sandy shore
Life is but the tiniest of shimmers
A flicker of a moment, nothing more.
Yet though our voice may soon be silenced
Still we proudly sing our swift, sweet song
Play our music in the face of death
We all must die, yet still we carry on.