BURIAL HILL.
How many years have ripened, gone to seed, and died,
Since first this Holy Precinct of the Dead was set apart and sanctified.
Sunset and purple cloud have kept their vestal watch,
The morning breezes played,
And noontide spanned the waters, day by day;
The lightnings and the frost disturb them nevermore,
Wrapt in a reverie of God, they heed not if the Shepherd-stars be caring for a weary world or no,
Or violets be budding in the melting snows.
They wonder not at creeds of men,
Or why their prayers are lost in space;
Long since they found the sky-hung stretches of Eternity,
The pastorals of peace.
And yet, as ’twere a spectral mist,
I half suspect they may return sometime,
Remembering the beauty of this sylvan scene,
The wide blue vista of the deep,
Its glinting sails;
Perhaps they come to brush away the withered leaves that clog our minds,
And blaze a trail for Immortality,
More sunshine and more flowers;
To help us hear the blackbird’s whistle in the trees,
The rustle in the hedge,
The whisper in the grass when dandelions bloom,
The madrigals that lift the dampness hanging over graves.