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| HERE the lamented dead in dust shall lie, | |
| Life’s lingering languors o’er, its labors done, | |
| Where waving boughs, betwixt the earth and sky, | |
| Admit the farewell radiance of the sun. | |
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| Here the long concourse from the murmuring town, | 5 |
| With funeral pace and slow, shall enter in, | |
| To lay the loved in tranquil silence down, | |
| No more to suffer, and no more to sin. | |
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| And in this hallowed spot, where Nature showers | |
| Her summer smiles from fair and stainless skies, | 10 |
| Affection’s hand may strew her dewy flowers, | |
| Whose fragrant incense from the grave shall rise. | |
| |
| And here the impressive stone, engraved with words | |
| Which grief sententious gives to marble pale, | |
| Shall teach the heart; while waters, leaves, and birds | 15 |
| Make cheerful music in the passing gale. | |
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| Say, wherefore should we weep, and wherefore pour | |
| On scented airs the unavailing sigh— | |
| While sun-bright waves are quivering to the shore, | |
| And landscapes blooming—that the loved must die? | 20 |
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| There is an emblem in this peaceful scene; | |
| Soon rainbow colors on the woods will fall, | |
| And autumn gusts bereave the hills of green, | |
| As sinks the year to meet its cloudy pall. | |
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| Then, cold and pale, in distant vistas round, | 25 |
| Disrobed and tuneless, all the woods will stand, | |
| While the chained streams are silent as the ground, | |
| As Death had numbed them with his icy hand. | |
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| Yet, when the warm, soft winds shall rise in spring, | |
| Like struggling daybeams o’er a blasted heath, | 30 |
| The bird returned shall poise her golden wing, | |
| And liberal Nature break the spell of Death. | |
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| So, when the tomb’s dull silence finds an end, | |
| The blessed dead to endless youth shall rise, | |
| And hear the archangel’s thrilling summons blend | 35 |
| Its tone with anthems from the upper skies. | |
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| There shall the good of earth be found at last, | |
| Where dazzling streams and vernal fields expand; | |
| Where Love her crown attains,—her trials past,— | |
| And, filled with rapture, hails the “better land”! | 40 |
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