THE BURIAL-PLACE. A FRAGMENT. EREWHILE, on England's pleasant shores, our sires Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong Of vegetable beauty. There the yew, The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped; years Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands Her graces, than the proudest monument. Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, In his wide temple of the wilderness, Brought not these simple customs of the heart With them. It might be, while they laid their dead By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves, And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers About their graves; and the familiar shades Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely known, And rarely in our borders may you meet Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between, Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh, Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand, In vain-they grow too near the dead. Yet here, That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry plant Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth Her ruddy, pouting fruit. * * "BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN." Он, deem not they are blest alone The light of smiles shall fill again And weary hours of woe and pain Are promises of happier years. |