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(Excerpt)
HERE are the houses of the dead. Here youth | |
| And age and manhood, stricken in his strength, | |
| Hold solemn state and awful silence keep, | |
| While Earth goes murmuring in her ancient path, | |
| And troubled Ocean tosses to and fro | 5 |
| Upon his mountainous bed impatiently, | |
| And many stars make worship musical | |
| In the dim-aisled abyss, and over all | |
| The Lord of Life, in meditation sits | |
| Changeless, alone, beneath the large white dome | 10 |
Of Immortality.
I pause and think | |
| Among these walks lined by the frequent tombs; | |
| For it is very wonderful. Afar | |
| The populous city lifts its tall, bright spires, | |
| And snowy sails are glancing on the bay, | 15 |
| As if in merriment,—but here all sleep; | |
| They sleep, these calm, pale people of the past: | |
| Spring plants her rosy feet on their dim homes,— | |
| They sleep! Sweet Summer comes and calls, and calls | |
| With all her passionate poetry of flowers | 20 |
| Wed to the music of the soft south-wind,— | |
| They sleep! The lonely Autumn sits and sobs | |
| Between the cold white tombs, as if her heart | |
| Would break,—they sleep! Wild Winter comes and chants | |
| Majestical the mournful sagas learned | 25 |
| Far in the melancholy North, where God | |
| Walks forth alone upon the desolate seas,— | |
| They slumber still! Sleep on, O passionless dead! | |
| Ye make our world sublime: ye have a power | |
| And majesty the living never hold. | 30 |
| Here Avarice shall forget his den of gold! | |
| Here Lust his beautiful victim, and hot Hate | |
| His crouching foe. Ambition here shall lean | |
| Against Death’s shaft, veiling the stern, bright eye | |
| That, overbold, would take the height of gods, | 35 |
| And know Fame’s nothingness. The sire shall come, | |
| The matron and the child, through many years, | |
| To this fair spot, whether the pluméd hearse | |
| Moves slowly through the winding walks, or Death | |
| For a brief moment pauses: all shall come | 40 |
| To feel the touching eloquence of graves. | |
| And therefore it was well for us to clothe | |
| The place with beauty. No dark terror here | |
| Shall chill the generous tropic of the soul, | |
| But Poetry and her starred comrade Art | 45 |
| Shall make the sacred country of the dead | |
| Magnificent. The fragrant flowers shall smile | |
| Over the low, green graves; the trees shall shake | |
| Their soul-like cadences upon the tombs; | |
| The little lake, set in a paradise | 50 |
| Of wood, shall be a mirror to the moon | |
| What time she looks from her imperial tent | |
| In long delight at all below; the sea | |
| Shall lift some stately dirge he loves to breathe | |
| Over dead nations, while calm sculptures stand | 55 |
| On every hill, and look like spirits there | |
| That drink the harmony. Oh, it is well! | |
| Why should a darkness scowl on any spot | |
| Where man grasps immortality? Light, light, | |
| And art, and poetry, and eloquence, | 60 |
| And all that we call glorious are its dower. * * * * * | |
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