Notre Dame

I did not weep to see it burn;
I wept to see the others see;
To watch as children sadly learn
That nothing keeps eternally;
To see their elders, who believed
They had forever to behold
What now is lost, be subtly grieved
And wish they were no longer old
Not for themselves, for pains or aches,
But so the world might be renewed
If only for their children's sakes
So they too might have someday viewed
The buttressed roof, the lovely spire
As they had been before the fire.