The Newly Dead.

I.

With the light just quenched in their eyes
They lie in their graves 'neath the skies,
And the fresh clod rests
Heavy upon their breasts.
The white rose dies
Upon the new-made mound, and underneath
The lily shrivels in the shriveling hand.
Pale guests of sovereign Death,
They sought their silent beds at his command,
And it seems
Strange that their life-long dreams
Shall find them no more,--never bid them arise
And go forth with a glory in their eyes.


II.

Still, voiceless, cold,
They lie in their shrouds and hold
The crumbling links that make
A chain for Memory's sake,
Broken, alas! too soon.
Blithe morn and brazen noon
And eve with garb of gray and gold,
Know them no more in the dark ways they take.
They have forgot the sun,
And the fiery worlds that run
About it. Something--(what, let no man say,)--
Begot of mystery is in mystery done:
The rest shall be with them and God alway.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

No biography available

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The Gold Fields.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

The Vow Forsworn.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

The Eagle And The Flower.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

Confession.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

H. C. M. H. S. J. K. W.

The dirge is played, the throbbing death-peal rung,
The sad-voiced requiem sung;
On each white urn where memory dwells
The wreath of rustling immortelles
Our loving hands have hung,
And balmiest leaves have strown and tenderest blossoms flung.

The birds that filled the air with songs have flown,
The wintry blasts have blown,
And these for whom the voice of spring
Bade the sweet choirs their carols sing
Sleep in those chambers lone
Where snows untrodden lie, unheard the night-winds moan.

We clasp them all in memory, as the vine
Whose running stems intwine
The marble shaft, and steal around
The lowly stone, the nameless mound;
With sorrowing hearts resign
Our brothers true and tried, and close our broken line.

How fast the lamps of li...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Two Graves.

'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...

William Cullen Bryant

A Monody

On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.


Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn--
One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column;
Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears
    Will not reach the deaf ears.

Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches,
Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches;
Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay,
    And so light, yesterday.

Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them,
Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,--
So near are th...

Kate Seymour Maclean

Resurgam

Into the darkness and the deeps
    My thoughts have strayed, where silence dwells,
Where the old world encrypted sleeps,--
    Myriads of forms, in myriad cells,
Of dead and inorganic things,
    That neither live, nor move, nor grow,
    Nor any change of atoms know;
That have neither legs, nor arms, nor wings,
That have neither heads, nor mouths, nor stings,
That have neither roots, nor leaves, nor stems,
To hold up flowers like diadems,
    Growing out of the ground below:
    But which hold instead
    The cycles dead,
And out of their stony and gloomy folds
Shape out new moulds
    For a new race begun;
Shutting within dark pages, furled
    As in a vast herbarium,
    The flowers and balms,
    The pines and palms,
    The ferns...

Kate Seymour Maclean

Hymn Of The Tomb Builders.

They were three old men with hoary hair
    And beards of wintry gray,
And they digged a grave in the yellow soil,
And they crooned this song as they plied their toil,
    In the fading light of day:

Hither ye bring your workmen,
    Like tools that are broken and bent,
To pay your due to their cunning
    After their skill is spent;
Hither ye bring them and lay them,
    And go when your prayers are said,
Back where the stress of your living
    Makes mock of the peace of your dead.

From the iron-paved roads of traffic,
    From the shell-scarred fields of war,
From the lands of earth's burning girdle
    To the snows of her uttermost star,
Ye bring in your sons and daughters
    From the glare and the din of today,
Giving th...

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Death

When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieve
As I grieved for my brother long ago.
Scarce did my eyes grow dim,
I had forgotten him;
I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow,
And many summers burned
When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame,
I heard that faded name
Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world
From which, years gone, he turned.

I looked up at my windows and I saw
The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon.
The air was very still
Above a distant hill;
It was the hour of night's full silver moon.
'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried;
And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept,
As my heart sadly crept
About the empty hills, bathed in that light
That lapped him when he died.

Ah! it was cold...

W.J. Turner