Classic Poem

Deep in the city's noisy heart
A sacred spot there lies;
Amid the tumult, yet apart,
And shut from worldly eyes.

There, just beyond the chapel shade,
Hid in a clovered mound,
Enough of innocence is laid
To sanctify the ground.

Born, as the violets are, in May,
With song of birds she came,
And when she sighed her soul away,
The season was the same.

It seemed in heaven benignly meant
To give this virgin birth
When all things beautiful are sent
To bless the budding earth.

But if her birth befitted then
The spring-time and the bloom,
Why, when that gladness came again,
Why went she to the tomb?

Oh, let not impious grief accuse
Kind Nature of a wrong!
Her form in flowers and fragrant dews
Shall be exhaled ere long.

Her beauty was akin to them;
Their elements combined
To shape the young, consummate stem,
Whose blossom was her mind.

And now the blossom is with God;
Soon shall the sun and showers
Wake from the slumber of the sod
All that was ever ours.

No weary winter's frozen sleep,
Under the torpid snows,
Her undecaying frame can keep
In the clay's cold repose;

For all her mortal part shall melt,
In other forms to rise,
Before her spirit shall have dwelt
One summer in the skies.