In Memorium, Peter Woodrow, The Good Shepherd Poem by Roy Ballard

Thorns and nettles guard the fruit
along the paths he kept.
He said that they were ‘Fleet of root'
but thorns and nettles crept
into his fields to spread and sprout
when Peter Woodrow's light went out.

‘A man who wanted' said the priest
‘to live for evermore'
No, no my friend, not in the least!
He simply meant to draw
from endless time without an end
sufficient days to make and mend.

A minute from that miser's heap
to patch a ragged coat,
to fix a fence for fattened sheep,
to clean a ditch and moat
where water birds and minutes scoot
and everything is fleet of root.