I heard a voice from out the beauteous earth,
Whose side rolled up from winter into summer,
Crying, “I am grievous for my children.”
I heard a voice from out the hoary ocean,
Crying, “Burial in the breast of me were better,—
Yea, burial in the salt flags and green crystals.”
I heard a voice from out the hollow ether,
Saying, “The thing ye cursed hath been abolished—
Corruption, and decay, and dissolution!”
And the world shrieked, and the summer-time was bitter,
And men and women feared the air behind them;
And for lack of its green graves the world was hateful.
*
Now at the bottom of a snowy mountain
I came upon a woman thin with sorrow,
Whose voice was like the crying of a sea-gull:
Saying, “O Angel of the Lord, come hither,
And bring me him I seek for on thy bosom,
That I may close his eyelids and embrace him.
“I curse thee that I cannot look upon him!
I curse thee that I know not he is sleeping!
Yet know that he has vanished upon God!
“I laid my little girl upon a wood-bier,
And very sweet she seemed, and near unto me;
And slipping flowers into her shroud was comfort.
“I put my silver mother in the darkness,
And kissed her, and was solaced by her kisses,
And set a stone, to mark the place, above her.
“And green, green were their quiet sleeping places,
So green that it was pleasant to remember
That I and my tall man would sleep beside them.
“The closing of dead eyelids is not dreadful,
For comfort comes upon us when we close them,
And tears fall, and our sorrow grows familiar;