Classic Poem

From out the musty gloom of the church,
The century-mouldered naves,
Come forth to the garden, spring-embow'r'd—
The sunlit garden of graves.

No warder stands at the portal's side,
No beggar a pittance craves;
But the trumpet-flower a welcome breathes
To the silent garden of graves.

The west wind blows o'er the garden wall,
And with sweet shed petals he paves
The path of the living, the mound of the dead,
In the beautiful garden of graves.

With a mellow rush the cool fountain leaps,
And in ripples its basin laves;
While a rainbow arc gleams fair, gleams fair,
O'er the dew-pearled garden of graves.

And through the mist and the bow uprears
The cross, and the Christ that saves:
O envy them not! O pity them not!
That sleep in the garden of graves.