THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Mabie, Hamilton Wright, Forbush, William Byron, and Hale, Edward Everett
They grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed 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 sleepers now?
One, midst the forest 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 dressed
Above the noble slain;
He wrapped the colors round his breast
On a blood-red field of Spain.
And one—o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves by soft winds fanned;
She faded midst Italian flowers—
The last of that fair band.
And parted thus, they rest who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee.
They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheered with song the hearth;
Alas for love! if thou wert all,
And naught beyond, O earth!
Felicia Dorothea Hemans