Classic Poem

In a quiet country churchyard
Where lilies grow tall and white.
And vie with the moist red roses
In tempting the bees to light:

Where the big ripe briar berry,
Red bead-like and bright and gay,
Allures, with the native cherry,
The bright little birds to stay:

Where butterflies black as aces
Detour from their dainty cones,
To beauty-spot sculptured faces
And blot the white marble stones:

There is in the path you enter
This ideal burial plot—
Half way betwixt gate and centre,—
One badly neglected spot.

A large heap covers the holding,
And spreads itself out all around;
As if in its girth enfolding
Some treasure beneath the ground.

No cross does it own, nor coping,
No verdure, nor even shade;
But solid it is, and sloping,
Shield-like and undecayed.

Time does not appear to lessen
This heap of unsightly stones,
Nor does it depend or rest on
Its keeping of nameless bones.

Who is he, I thought, that spurneth
The efforts of time to blight?
Who is it that mutely turneth
All steps to the left and right?

I asked for the chart and read on
Its pages yellow and stiff:
“A Hermit, unknown, found dead on
Rocks at the foot of the cliff.”