Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Cave Hill Cemetery
By George Dennison Prentice (18021870)H
Are softly gathering on the leaves and flowers,
I come, O patriot dead, to muse
A few brief hours.
Rise the sad evergreens, whose solemn forms
Are dark as if they only drank
The thunder-storms.
The low, wild winds their dirge-like music pour,
Like the far ocean’s solemn sound,
On its lone shore.
Dirge-like and soul-like, melancholy, wild,
Comes like a mother’s wailing cry
O’er her dead child.
Where mounds rise think like surges on the sea,
Those whom ye met in fierce array
Sleep dreamlessly.
The same birds chant their spirit-requiem,
The same sad flowers their fragrance fling
O’er you and them.
Alike o’er Northern and o’er Southern dust,
And both to God’s great mercy leave
In equal trust.
Will meet no more, but calmly take your rest,
The meek hands folded in repose
On each still breast.
Their shafts to blazon each dead hero’s name,
Yet well, oh, well, ye slumber here,
Great sons of fame!
From the unburdened as the burdened sod,
And stand as pure in soul and heart
Before their God.