| |
| OUR ancient church! its lowly tower, | |
| Beneath the loftier spire, | |
| Is shadowed when the sunset hour | |
| Clothes the tall shaft in fire; | |
| It sinks beyond the distant eye, | 5 |
| Long ere the glittering vane, | |
| High wheeling in the western sky, | |
| Has faded o’er the plain. | |
| |
| Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep | |
| Their vigil on the green; | 10 |
| One seems to guard, and one to weep, | |
| The dead that lie between; | |
| And both roll out, so full and near, | |
| Their music’s mingling waves, | |
| They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear | 15 |
| Leans on the narrow graves. | |
| |
| The stranger parts the flaunting weeds, | |
| Whose seeds the winds have strown | |
| So thick beneath the line he reads, | |
| They shade the sculptured stone; | 20 |
| The child unveils his clustered brow, | |
| And ponders for a while | |
| The graven willow’s pendent bough, | |
| Or rudest cherub’s smile. | |
| |
| But what to them the dirge, the knell? | 25 |
| These were the mourner’s share;— | |
| The sullen clang, whose heavy swell | |
| Throbbed through the beating air;— | |
| The rattling cord,—the rolling stone,— | |
| The shelving sand that slid, | 30 |
| And, far beneath, with hollow tone, | |
| Rung on the coffin’s lid. | |
| |
| The slumberer’s mound grows fresh and green, | |
| Then slowly disappears; | |
| The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, | 35 |
| Earth hides his date and years; | |
| But, long before the once-loved name | |
| Is sunk or worn away, | |
| No lip the silent dust may claim, | |
| That pressed the breathing clay. | 40 |
| |
| Go where the ancient pathway guides, | |
| See where our sires laid down | |
| Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, | |
| The patriarchs of the town; | |
| Hast thou a tear for buried love? | 45 |
| A sigh for transient power? | |
| All that a century left above, | |
| Go, read it in an hour! | |
| |
| The Indian’s shaft, the Briton’s ball, | |
| The sabre’s thirsting edge, | 50 |
| The hot shell, shattering in its fall, | |
| The bayonet’s rending wedge,— | |
| Here scattered death; yet, seek the spot, | |
| No trace thine eye can see, | |
| No altar,—and they need it not | 55 |
| Who leave their children free! | |
| |
| Look where the turbid rain-drops stand | |
| In many a chiselled square, | |
| The knightly crest, the shield, the brand | |
| Of honored names were there; | 60 |
| Alas! for every tear is dried | |
| Those blazoned tablets knew, | |
| Save when the icy marble’s side | |
| Drips with the evening dew. | |
| |
| Or gaze upon yon pillared stone, | 65 |
| The empty urn of pride; | |
| There stand the Goblet and the Sun,— | |
| What need of more beside? | |
| Where lives the memory of the dead, | |
| Who made their tomb a toy? | 70 |
| Whose ashes press that nameless bed? | |
| Go, ask the village boy! | |
| |
| Lean o’er the slender western wall, | |
| Ye ever-roaming girls; | |
| The breath that bids the blossom fall | 75 |
| May lift your floating curls, | |
| To sweep the simple lines that tell | |
| An exile’s date and doom; | |
| And sigh, for where his daughters dwell, | |
| They wreathe the stranger’s tomb. | 80 |
| |
| And one amid these shades was born, | |
| Beneath this turf who lies, | |
| Once beaming as the summer’s morn, | |
| That closed her gentle eyes;— | |
| If sinless angels love as we, | 85 |
| Who stood thy grave beside, | |
| Three seraph welcomes waited thee, | |
| The daughter, sister, bride! | |
| |
| I wandered to thy buried mound | |
| When earth was hid below | 90 |
| The level of the glaring ground, | |
| Choked to its gates with snow, | |
| And when with summer’s flowery waves | |
| The lake of verdure rolled, | |
| As if a Sultan’s white-robed slaves | 95 |
| Had scattered pearls and gold. | |
| |
| Nay, the soft pinions of the air, | |
| That lift this trembling tone, | |
| Its breath of love may almost bear, | |
| To kiss thy funeral stone;— | 100 |
| And, now thy smiles have passed away, | |
| For all the joy they gave, | |
| May sweetest dews and warmest ray | |
| Lie on thine early grave! | |
| |
| When damps beneath, and storms above, | 105 |
| Have bowed these fragile towers, | |
| Still o’er the graves yon locust-grove | |
| Shall swing its Orient flowers;— | |
| And I would ask no mouldering bust, | |
| If e’er this humble line, | 110 |
| Which breathed a sigh o’er other’s dust, | |
| Might call a tear on mine. | |
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