THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD
Mrs. Hemans
They grew in beauty side by side,
They fill’d one home with glee;
Their graves are sever’d far and wide
By mount and stream and sea.
The same fond mother bent at night
O’er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight:
Where are those dreamers now?
One ’midst the forests of the West
By a dark stream is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar-shade.
The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one;
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O’er his low bed may weep!
One sleeps where southern vines are drest
Above the noble slain;
He wrapt his colors round his breast
On a blood-red field of Spain.
And one—o’er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fann’d;
She faded ’midst Italian flowers;
The last of that bright band.