Home is the sailor, home from sea,

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

A close friend of mine lost his brother last week in a freak and devastating accident. There is a gang of us - including this friend who has now buried his younger brother - who have been close mates since we started secondary school and the weekend has been a horrible shock. Not having any brothers myself, I see these guys as the equivalent and it meant alot for me - and for us - to be there when one of our group needed the others most.
At the graveside this epitaph of Robert Louis Stevenson's was read and it rang out perfectly on a gloomy, wet afternoon in the desolate countryside cemetery, so I reprint it here.
Apologies for the change of tone in this post - if it jars a little - but I needed to mark it here, for my own peace of mind if nothing else. Back soon..