Classic Poem

The moss is green upon the stone;
The stone lies heavy on the mould;
The spot is dreary, sad, and lone;
The forest air is cold.

The sky above is wan and bleak;
The ground beneath is brown and bare;
No living voice intrudes to break
The tranquil silence there.

Another breeze among the boughs,
And then another leafy shower
Comes rustling down; the sadness grows
More and more sad each hour.

The shadow of the drifting cloud
Falls chilly on these gloomy firs,
Deepening the darkness of the wood;
Hardly a leaflet stirs.

Quick-twinkling through the leafy screen,
The stray gleams go and come;
Half-hidden by the shade, is seen
The old and well-known tomb.

Here sleeps the martyr's weary head;
Here moulders holy dust,
With the wild wood-moss overspread,
Resting in silent trust.

No summer-flowers breathe sweetness here,
It is a lone forsaken spot,
Round lie the leaves of autumn sere,
The leaf that changes not.

Far from man's voice of love or strife,
'Tis fit thaThere his grave should be,
In death an outcast as in life—
Unnamed in history.

Young hopes, young friendships, joys of earth,
Had passed him by like summer-dreams,
Solemn his life had been from birth,
Like march of mountain streams.

Changeful his lot, like yon vexed sky,
When moorland breezes wildly blow,
His weary soul now rests on high,
His body sleeps below.

Rest, weary dust, lie here an hour;
Ere long, like blossom from the sod,
Thou shalt come forth a glorious flower,
Fit for the eye of God.