Classic Poem

Where should we bury our dearest dead?
Out in the meadow his grave should be,
Clover and daisies over his head
Swaying and singing their psalmody;
For all the old world is sacred soil,
And most the meadows, hallowed by toil.

Never a stone on his place of sleep,
But level the grass shall over him sweep;
Never the mower shall know if his feet
Press his covering firmer down;
Nothing that molders, vain and fleet,
Shall mock the gleam of his emerald crown.

We may not scatter our fading flowers
Above his ashes with tender will;
But Spring, with hands more faithful than ours,
Will bring the blossoms when ours are still;
Painting and building, above his breast,
Every season shall deck his rest.

So, year after year, the field will grow
A living pledge of the life laid low.
Nor would he ask for a fairer sign
Than bobolinks, dipping and singing at morn,
Than careless straying of horses and kine,
Than changing sentries of wheat and corn.

Why then cumber the sad, sweet world
With moldering stone and crumbling urn,
Too weak to tell of the love impearled
That flew to the city where jaspers burn?
Buried beneath this sea of grass,
God can find him when He doth pass.