| |
| THEY built his mound of the rough red ground, | |
| By the dip of a desert dell, | |
| Where all things sweet are killed by the heat, | |
| And scattered o’er flat and fell. | |
| In a burning zone they left him alone, | 5 |
| Past the uttermost western plain; | |
| And the nightfall dim heard his funeral hymn | |
| In the voices of wind and rain. | |
| |
| The songs austere of the forests drear, | |
| And the echoes of clift and cave, | 10 |
| When the dark is keen where the storm hath been, | |
| Fleet over the far-away grave. | |
| And through the days when the torrid rays | |
| Strike down on a coppery gloom, | |
| Some spirit grieves in the perished leaves | 15 |
| Whose theme is that desolate tomb. | |
| |
| No human foot, or paw of brute, | |
| Halts now where the stranger sleeps; | |
| But cloud and star his fellows are, | |
| And the rain that sobs and weeps. | 20 |
| The dingo yells by the far iron fells, | |
| The plover is loud in the range, | |
| But they never come near to the slumberer here, | |
| Whose rest is a rest without change. | |
| |
| Ah! in his life, had he mother or wife, | 25 |
| To wait for his step on the floor? | |
| Did Beauty wax dim while watching for him | |
| Who passed through the threshold no more? | |
| Doth it trouble his head? He is one with the dead; | |
| He lies by the alien streams; | 30 |
| And sweeter than sleep is death that is deep | |
| And unvexed by the lordship of dreams. | |
| |
