Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BURIAL HILL, by FREDERIC ROWLAND MARVIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BURIAL HILL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Gone with their beautiful faith
Last Line: If the dream of their worship came true?
Subject(s): Death; Funerals; Graves; Memory; Praise; Worship; Dead, The; Burials; Tombs; Tombstones


GONE with their beautiful faith,
Their wonder, and vision divine,
Are the men of our Puritan days,
And the wives and mothers of old,—
Each grave in New England's a shrine.
The living still echo their praise,
But hold not as of yore their belief;
Strong were their sermons and prayers,
And sweet were the hymns they sung;
But the fathers are dust at our feet,
The voice of their worship is still.
I hear the glad carol of birds,
And the song of the wind in the trees,
As they heard them of old in this place;
Yet not as they heard them I hear,
For dead are the wonder and fear
That made the forest resound
With shout of battle and prayer.
In the roar of the sea on the shore,
The voice of Jehovah they heard;
They beheld Him in dreams of the night,
And they rose in the pride of their might,
And defied all the world in His name.
Their faith was a rock of defense,
Hard as the flint in their guns;
Not loveless, but stern and austere
As the righteous implacable fate
They adored in the God whom they served
They are gone, and their faith is no more,—
Its beauty, its wonder, its love,
Its fear, its might, and despair;
But we, their children, still hold,
Not their creed, but their life in regard—
We honor them still in our hearts.
Here lived, and sorrowed, and loved,
The men of those Puritan days;
And here 'neath our feet they repose;
Under violet, daisy, and vine,
And the fragrant and trailing wild rose.
Mingles their dust with the dust
Of the hills and valleys they knew;
But their spirits so brave and devout,
Ah, who shall arise to declare,
If the dream of their worship came true?





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