Irony

Why are the things that have no death The ones with neither sight nor breath! Eternity is thrust upon A bit of earth, a senseless stone. A grain of dust, a casual clod Receives the greatest gift of God. A pebble in the roadway lies— It never dies. The grass our fathers cut away Is growing on their graves today; The tiniest brooks that scarcely flow Eternally will come and go. There is no kind of death to kill The sands that lie so meek and still. . . . But Man is great and strong and wise— And so he dies.