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Through the town.

      But now he walks the streets,

       And he looks at all he meets

       Sad and wan,

       And he shakes his feeble head,

       That it seems as if he said,

       "They are gone."

      The mossy marbles rest

       On the lips that he has prest

       In their bloom,

       And the names he loved to hear

       Have been carved for many a year

       On the tomb.

      My grandmamma has said—

       Poor old lady, she is dead

       Long ago—

       That he had a Roman nose,

       And his cheek was like a rose

       In the snow.

      But now his nose is thin,

       And it rests upon his chin

       Like a staff,

       And a crook is in his back,

       And a melancholy crack

       In his laugh.

      I know it is a sin

       For me to sit and grin

       At him here;

       But the old three-cornered hat,

       And the breeches, and all that,

       Are so queer!

      And if I should live to be

       The last leaf upon the tree

       In the spring,

       Let them smile, as I do now,

       At the old forsaken bough

       Where I cling.

THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD

       Table of Contents

      OUR ancient church! its lowly tower,

       Beneath the loftier spire,

       Is shadowed when the sunset hour

       Clothes the tall shaft in fire;

       It sinks beyond the distant eye

       Long ere the glittering vane,

       High wheeling in the western sky,

       Has faded o'er the plain.

      Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep

       Their vigil on the green;

       One seems to guard, and one to weep,

       The dead that lie between;

       And both roll out, so full and near,

       Their music's mingling waves,

       They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear

       Leans on the narrow graves.

      The stranger parts the flaunting weeds,

       Whose seeds the winds have strown

       So thick, beneath the line he reads,

       They shade the sculptured stone;

       The child unveils his clustered brow,

       And ponders for a while

       The graven willow's pendent bough,

       Or rudest cherub's smile.

      But what to them the dirge, the knell?

       These were the mourner's share—

       The sullen clang, whose heavy swell

       Throbbed through the beating air;

       The rattling cord, the rolling stone,

       The shelving sand that slid,

       And, far beneath, with hollow tone

       Rung on the coffin's lid.

      The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green,

       Then slowly disappears;

       The mosses creep, the gray stones lean,

       Earth hides his date and years;

       But, long before the once-loved name

       Is sunk or worn away,

       No lip the silent dust may claim,

       That pressed the breathing clay.

      Go where the ancient pathway guides,

       See where our sires laid down

       Their smiling babes, their cherished brides,

       The patriarchs of the town;

       Hast thou a tear for buried love?

       A sigh for transient power?

       All that a century left above,

       Go, read it in an hour!

      The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball,

       The sabre's thirsting edge,

       The hot shell, shattering in its fall,

       The bayonet's rending wedge—

       Here scattered death; yet, seek the spot,

       No trace thine eye can see,

       No altar—and they need it not

       Who leave their children free!

      Look where the turbid rain-drops stand

       In many a chiselled square;

       The knightly crest, the shield, the brand

       Of honored names were there;—

       Alas! for every tear is dried

       Those blazoned tablets knew,

       Save when the icy marble's side

       Drips with the evening dew.

      Or gaze upon yon pillared stone,

       The empty urn of pride;

       There stand the Goblet and the Sun—

       What need of more beside?

       Where lives the memory of the dead,

       Who made their tomb a toy?

       Whose ashes press that nameless bed?

       Go, ask the village boy!

      Lean o'er the slender western wall,

       Ye ever-roaming girls;

       The breath that bids the blossom fall

       May lift your floating curls,

       To sweep the simple lines that tell

       An exile's date and doom;

       And sigh, for where his daughters dwell,

       They wreathe the stranger's tomb.

      And one amid these shades was born,

       Beneath this turf who lies,

       Once beaming as the summer's morn,

       That closed her gentle eyes;

       If sinless angels love as we,

       Who stood thy grave beside,

       Three seraph welcomes waited thee,

       The daughter, sister, bride.

      I wandered to thy buried mound

       When earth was hid below

       The level of the glaring ground,

       Choked to its gates with snow,

       And when with summer's flowery waves

       The lake of verdure rolled,

      

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