Classic Poem

When my last song is sung and I am dead
And laid away beneath the kindly clay,
Set a square stone above my dreamless head,
And sign me with the cross and signing say:
“Here lieth one who loved the steadfast things
Of his own land, its gladness and its grace,
The stubbled fields, the linnets' gleaming wings,
The long, low gables of his native place,
Its gravelled paths, and the strong wind that rends
The boughs about the house, the hearth's red glow,
The surly, slow good-fellowship of friends,
The humour of the men he used to know,
And all their swinging choruses and mirth”—
Then turn aside and leave my dust in earth.