| |
| THIS 1 grassy hillock, with its rustic urn, | |
| And its light hedge of snowy roses, train’d | |
| By some sweet hand, is the abiding place | |
| Of one most beautiful. A sweeter child | |
| Than this frail tenant of the churchyard cell, | 5 |
| You would not meet through all the village round. | |
| She perish’d in the heyday of her life, | |
| Ere yet the frosts of trouble or of care | |
| Had chill’d the gentle freshness of her youth. | |
| She was of all the rural feasts the queen— | 10 |
| The merriest when the dance wheel’d round the tree | |
| At summer eventide, or when it swept | |
| The hearth-stone of the jocund husbandman, | |
| In winter’s chilly and tempestuous night. | |
| Oh! there is not a happy bird that fills | 15 |
| The open valley with her sylvan song, | |
| When night is darkening all the golden woods, | |
| That might surpass the compass of her voice | |
| In its deep, delicate richness! In the grave | |
| She sleepeth now, where everything is mute! | 20 |
| Long shall the poor man, and the aged dame, | |
| And orphan child, remember her sweet smile | |
| And her benignant acts; for well she loved | |
| To minister unto the broken heart, | |
| And help the poor blind beggar on his way, | 25 |
| And succor him with travel sore athirst, | |
| And shelter, from the rain and wintry hail, | |
| The man that had not where to lay his head; | |
| And ever there the grateful traveller bless’d | |
| That sweet, young face, that smiled his gloom away, | 30 |
| And woke the song of gladness in his heart. | |
| And here her lover rests! | |
| Beneath yon ridge, | |
| Whereon the weeds grow rank, is hid the dust, | |
| The plume, the bloody sword, the spur, and scarf | 35 |
| Of one who fought for fame, and found it not. | |
| He was a wild and reckless, wayward boy, | |
| The leader of the noisy village troop | |
| In all their careless sports—one stout of heart | |
| And strong of hand, and foremost in the rush | 40 |
| Of boyish battle. Yet his fiery soul | |
| Would melt when Sorrow told her wretched tale, | |
| Or Pain the gloomy history of her grief, | |
| Or Age her melancholy words. | |
| The youth | 45 |
| Had pledged his honest love to that meek girl, | |
| And in the innocent fondness of her heart, | |
| She bless’d him with her love. | |
| But time wore on, | |
| And he had heard the savage trump of war | 50 |
| Sound in the peaceful vale, and heard the tramp | |
| And neighing of the charger, and the clang | |
| Of martial arms, and shouts of armed men, | |
| And saw the gairish flag of battle float | |
| Beside the cottage of his infancy. | 55 |
| He clothed him in the garb of strife, and placed | |
| Its sword upon his thigh, and search’d for fame | |
| “E’en at the cannon’s mouth.” | |
| And he came back | |
| A bruised, and sick, and broken-hearted man, | 60 |
| To linger out his few sad days on earth | |
| And die, and be at rest;—and by his side | |
| They placed that bruised reed that leant on him. | |
| “After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.” | |
