| |
| A LONELY slope of fairest green, | |
| Furrowed with ancient, low-ridged graves; | |
| Downward the forest-shadows lean, | |
| And sunlight comes in fitful waves. | |
| |
| So sleeps the scene where, as of old, | 5 |
| Should grief and memory oft repair; | |
| But love has faded and waxed cold,— | |
| How silent broods the breathing air! | |
| |
| ’Neath slanting stone or massive tomb | |
| Each churchyard dweller stirless sleeps, | 10 |
| Nor recks of changing frost or bloom, | |
| Or distant cry of ocean deeps. | |
| |
| On throbbing heart and eager brain | |
| Well hath the stern one wrought his spell, | |
| How poor are words, and signs how vain, | 15 |
| The story of one life to tell! | |
| |
| On that high, mossy, crumbling stone, | |
| Washed by a century’s dripping showers, | |
| Mid phrases to our fathers known, | |
| The graven death’s-head dimly lowers. | 20 |
| |
| And there, on many a weighty shaft, | |
| The last faint glow of knightly fame | |
| Survives in emblems that would waft | |
| To latest days some honored name. | |
| |
| High on the right, with graven stone, | 25 |
| The ashes of the powerful lie; | |
| Low on the left, ’neath turf alone, | |
| Watched by the same eternal sky, | |
| |
| Repose at last the humble throng | |
| Who toiled that those might leisure know; | 30 |
| To these no sculptured signs belong; | |
| No imagery of death and woe | |
| |
| Mars the sweet sense of glad release, | |
| The rest that time and nature yield; | |
| The slave, the poor, the hireling, cease | 35 |
| From labor in this tranquil field. | |
| |
| Not all unheeded fled away | |
| These shadows of the dusky past; | |
| Here in some long-forgotten day | |
| The mourner’s tears have fallen fast. | 40 |
| |
| But ere the wanderer’s glance may pause | |
| On each neglected, sunken mound, | |
| His pious meed of pity draws | |
| A low response of solemn sound: | |
| |
| “Come not to linger by our graves; | 45 |
| Plant not thy curious footstep here; | |
| The past from thee no memory craves, | |
| No idle tribute of a tear. | |
| |
| “Our names, our lives, why seek to know? | |
| Avails it, then, that thou shouldst learn | 50 |
| Of aught but proud armorial show, | |
| Or brazen pomp of funeral urn? | |
| |
| “See’st thou the glade in verdure drest? | |
| Our strength subdued the stubborn soil: | |
| In fields with golden promise blest | 55 |
| Behold the triumph of our toil! | |
| |
| “Nor we, the mothers of a race, | |
| Less bravely strove, in evil days, | |
| To cope with want, to win a space | |
| For freer life, in broader ways. | 60 |
| |
| “What though beneath no empty show | |
| Of funeral state our relics rest? | |
| Do they the sweeter slumber know | |
| Who long the marble couch have pressed? | |
| |
| “To them their cherished pomp of place, | 65 |
| Their selfish pride of heartless powers; | |
| Be ours the boast of loftier race,— | |
| Manhood and womanhood were ours.” | |
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