| 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 | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| |
| Low moans the river from its bed, | |
| The distant pines reply; | |
| Like mourners shrinking from the dead, | |
| They stand apart and sigh. | |
| |
| Unshaded smites the summer sun, | 25 |
| Unchecked the winter blast; | |
| The school-girl learns the place to shun, | |
| With glances backward cast. | |
| |
| For thus our fathers testified,— | |
| That he might read who ran,— | 30 |
| The emptiness of human pride, | |
| The nothingness of man. | |
| |
| They dared not plant the grave with flowers, | |
| Nor dress the funeral sod, | |
| Where, with a love as deep as ours, | 35 |
| They left their dead with God. | |
| |
| The hard and thorny path they kept | |
| From beauty turned aside; | |
| Nor missed they over those who slept | |
| The grace to life denied. | 40 |
| |
| Yet still the wilding flowers would blow, | |
| The golden leaves would fall, | |
| The seasons come, the seasons go, | |
| And God be good to all. | |
| |
| Above the graves the blackberry hung | 45 |
| In bloom and green its wreath, | |
| And harebells swung as if they rung | |
| The chimes of peace beneath. | |
| |
| The beauty Nature loves to share, | |
| The gifts she hath for all, | 50 |
| The common light, the common air, | |
| O'ercrept the graveyard's wall. | |
| |
| It knew the glow of eventide, | |
| The sunrise and the noon, | |
| And glorified and sanctified | 55 |
| It slept beneath the moon. | |
| |
| With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod, | |
| Around the seasons ran, | |
| And evermore the love of God | |
| Rebuked the fear of man. | 60 |
| |
| We dwell with fears on either hand, | |
| Within a daily strife, | |
| And spectral problems waiting stand | |
| Before the gates of life. | |
| |
| The doubts we vainly seek to solve, | 65 |
| The truths we know, are one; | |
| The known and nameless stars revolve | |
| Around the Central Sun. | |
| |
| And if we reap as we have sown, | |
| And take the dole we deal, | 70 |
| The law of pain is love alone, | |
| The wounding is to heal. | |
| |
| Unharmed from change to change we glide, | |
| We fall as in our dreams; | |
| The far-off terror at our side | 75 |
| A smiling angel seems. | |
| |
| Secure on God's all-tender heart | |
| Alike rest great and small; | |
| Why fear to lose our little part, | |
| When he is pledged for all? | 80 |
| |
| O fearful heart and troubled brain! | |
| Take hope and strength from this,— | |
| That Nature never hints in vain, | |
| Nor prophesies amiss. | |
| |
| Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave, | 85 |
| Her lights and airs are given | |
| Alike to playground and the grave; | |
| And over both is Heaven. | |
