Inscription For A Rural Cemetery.

'Tis a bleak wild hill, but green and bright
In the summer warmth and the mid-day light;
There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren,
And the dash of the brook from the alder glen;
There's the sound of a bell from the scattered flock,
And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock,
And fresh from the west is the free wind's breath,
There is nothing here that speaks of death.

Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie,
And dwellings cluster, 'tis there men die.
They are born, they die, and are buried near,
Where the populous grave-yard lightens the bier;
For strict and close are the ties that bind
In death the children of human-kind;
Yea, stricter and closer than those of life,
'Tis a neighbourhood that knows no strife.
They are noiselessly gat...

Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong
And natural dread of man's last home, the grave,
Its frost and silence, they disposed around,
To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt
Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues
Of vegetable beauty. There the yew,
Green even amid the snows of winter, told
Of immortality, and gracefully
The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;
And there the gadding woodbine crept about,
And there the ancient ivy. From the spot
Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years
Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands
That trembled as they placed her there, the rose
Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke
Her graces, ...

Written In The Danville (KY.) Cemetery.


I.

Within thy hallowed precincts on this sweet autumnal day,
    We're wandering 'neath the cedar and the pine,
Where rests the sacred dust of loved ones passed away,
    And bleeding hearts a melancholy pleasure find.


II.

In memory's faithful mirror here once more we trace
    Familiar forms of those in life we knew,
And see again the shadowy outlines of some face
    That, living, beamed with kindness--ever true.


III.

Old age, and manhood's prime, and helpless infancy
    Have dotted o'er with many an emerald mound,
And marked each stone with mournful tracery
    Which stands within this consecrated ground.


IV.

And there the marble shaft its s...

Our vales are sweet with fern and rose,
Our hills are maple-crowned;
But not from them our fathers chose
The village burying-ground.

The dreariest spot in all the land
To Death they set apart;
With scanty grace from Nature’s hand,
And none from that of Art.

A winding wall of mossy stone,
Frost-flung and broken, lines
A lonesome acre thinly grown
With grass and wandering vines.

Without the wall a birch-tree shows
Its drooped and tasselled head;
Within, a stag-horned sumach grows,
Fern-leafed, with spikes of red.

There, sheep that graze the neighboring plain
Like white ghosts come and go,
The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain,
The cow-bell tinkles slow.

Low moans the river from its bed,
The distant pines re...

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
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;
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
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;
The child unveils his clustered brow,
And ponders for a while
The graven...

Lonely and silent and calm it lies
'Neath rosy dawn or midnight skies;
So densely peopled, yet so still,
The murmuring voice of mountain rill,
The plaint the wind 'mid branches wakes,
Alone the solemn silence breaks.

Whatever changes the seasons bring, -
The birds, the buds of joyous spring,
The glories that come with the falling year
The snows and storms of winter drear, -
Are all unmarked in this lone spot,
Its shrouded inmates feel them not.

Thoughts full of import, earnest and deep,
Must the feeling heart in their spirit steep,
Here, where Death's footprints meet the sight:
The long chill rows of tombstones white,
The graves so thickly, widely spread,
Within this city of the Dead.

Say, who could tell what aching sighs,
What...