Classic Poem

Beside the River's dark green flow—
Here, where the pine-trees weep,
Red Autumn's winds will coldly blow
Above their dreamless sleep;

Their sleep, for whom with prayerful breath
We've put apart to-day,
This spot,—for shadowed walks of Death,
And gardens of Decay.

This crumbling bank with Autumn crowned,
These pining woodland ways,
Seem now no longer common ground;
But each in turn conveys

A saddened sense of something more:
Is it the dying year?
Or a dim shadow, sent before,
Of the next gathering here?

Is it that He, the silent Power,
Has now assumed the place,
And drunk the light of Morning's hour,
The life of Nature's grace?

Not so: the spot is beautiful,
And holy is the sod;
'Tis we are faint, our eyes are dull;
All else is fair in God.

So let them lie, their graves bedecked,
Whose bones these shades invest,
Nor grief deny, nor fear suspect,
The beauty of their rest.