| |
| HE sleeps beneath the larch tree’s shade; | |
| And kindly hands his cairn have made | |
| Far up among the sunny hills, | |
| Beside his own pure mountain rills; | |
| Whose music, when the summer day | 5 |
| From the deep glens had pass’d away, | |
| And from the far down village tower | |
| The bell toll’d out the evening hour, | |
| Would murmur round his moss-wreathed bed, | |
| Its simple requiem o’er the dead. | 10 |
| |
| It is a lonely grave—and here, | |
| When the still summer eve draws near, | |
| The eagle folds his dusky wing, | |
| To list the storm’s deep muttering | |
| Far down among the mountain vales; | 15 |
| While o’er that verdant spot, the gales | |
| Of evening stir the dark old pines; | |
| And o’er the cloud’s embattled lines, | |
| The sun pours forth his last bright smile, | |
| As if to bless that mouldering pile. | 20 |
| |
| Long years have sped upon their flight, | |
| And many a dark and weary night, | |
| The cold rain-drops, with sullen dash, | |
| Have swept the larch and mountain ash, | |
| Since the first flow’rets bloom’d around, | 25 |
| The margin of that little mound. | |
| |
| It was a summer day—the bells, | |
| From the deep mountain gorge and dells, | |
| Were chiming on the morning breeze; | |
| And ’neath the dark o’erhanging trees, | 30 |
| The muleteer sung on his way | |
| Chanting his blithesome roundelay. | |
| No tears were shed—no mutter’d prayer | |
| Stole upward through the stilly air; | |
| No flowers were strown—the mountain stream | 35 |
| Murmur’d his only requiem! | |
| |
| But when his native hills are bright | |
| In the calm smile of summer’s light; | |
| And all the lowland woods are green, | |
| By that lone grave sweet flowers are seen; | 40 |
| And travellers pause upon their way, | |
| To list the birds’ sad minstrelsy | |
| From that old larch, and breathe a prayer, | |
| For him who rests in silence there. | |
| |
