The morning stars sang at their birth,
In the first beginnings of time.
What voice of dolour or of mirth
At their last funeral made moan,—
Ashes to ashes—earth to earth,
And stone to stone,—
Chanting the liturgy sublime.
What matter,—in that doom's-day book
Their place is fixed—their names are writ,
Each in its individual nook,—
God's eye beholds—remembers it.
When the slow-moving centuries
Have lapsed in the former eternities,—
When the day is come which we see not yet,—
When the sea gives up its dead—
And the thrones are set,
These books shall be opened and read!
WRITTEN IN A CEMETERY.
Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!—oh wandering grasses,
And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;—
Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses
My darling's couch, where he in sleep reclines.
Stay yet awhile;—let not the chill October
Plant spires of glinting frost about his bed;
Nor shower her faded leaves, so brown and sober,
Among the tuberoses above his head.
I would have all things fair, and sweet, and tender,—
The daisy's pearl, the cowslip's shield of snow,
And fragrant hyacinths in purple splendour,
About my darling's grassy couch to grow.
Oh birds!—small pilgrims of the summer weather,
Come hither, for my darling loved ye well;—
Here floats the thistle down for you to gather,
And bearded grasses ripen in the dell.
Here pipe, and plume your wings, and chirp and flutter,
And swing, light-poised upon the pendant bough;—
Fondly I deem he hears the calls ye utter,
And stirs in his light sleep to answer you.
Oh wind!—that blows through hours of nights and lonely,
Oh rain!—that sobs against my window pane,—
Ye beat upon my heart, which beats but only
To clasp and shelter my lost lamb again.