| |
| FAR up the mountain’s craggy side, | |
| Upon a rudely fashioned bier, | |
| They bore him out from where he died | |
| (His cabin near the rocky slide), | |
| With scarce a word, without a tear. | 5 |
| |
| They hollowed out a fitting grave, | |
| Close by the summit’s granite rim, | |
| Then gathered round and sung a hymn, | |
| And placed him in the narrow cave. | |
| “To ashes, ashes; dust to dust”; | 10 |
| Thus was performed the sacred trust | |
| That man assumes upon his birth, | |
| To give the dead again to earth. | |
| |
| Up to his tomb will clamber still | |
| The sounds he was so used to hear,— | 15 |
| The music of the gad and drill | |
| Beneath the hammer, sharp and clear; | |
| The deep-toned thunder of the blast, | |
| A tidal wave of echo cast | |
| Off from the mountain’s rocky crest, | 20 |
| Shall bear his spirit off to rest. | |
| |
| There in his lofty sepulchre, | |
| A league above the distant plain, | |
| His ashes sleep the final sleep; | |
| And passing clouds which floating skirr | 25 |
| Across the vast aerial deep, | |
| In shapes of rugged majesty, | |
| Oft kiss his tomb in passing by. | |
| Or, when a calm is in the air, | |
| Like snowy galleons at rest, | 30 |
| They peaceful lie at anchor there, | |
| To shut the lower world from view, | |
| And point aloft to heaven’s deep blue, | |
The promised haven of the blest.
THE END. | |
| |
