Lay It Away by Ella Wheeler Wilcox — Read

We will lay our summer away, my friend, / So tenderly lay it away. / It was bright and sweet to the very end, / Like one long, golden day. / Nothing sweeter could come to me, / Nothing sweeter to you. / We will lay it away, and let it be, / Hid from the whole world's view.

We will lay it away like a dear, dead thing / Dead, yet forever fair; / And the fresh green robes of a deathless spring, / Though dead, it shall always wear. / We will not hide it in grave or tomb, / But lay it away to sleep, / Guarded by beauty, and light, and bloom, / Wrapped in a slumber deep.