Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE UNKNOWN GRAVE, by DAVID MACBETH MOIR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE UNKNOWN GRAVE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Who sleeps below? Who sleeps below?
Last Line: And trust in him whose arm can save.
Alternate Author Name(s): Delta
Subject(s): Death; Graves; Dead, The; Tombs; Tombstones


I.

WHO sleeps below? who sleeps below?—
It is a question idle all!
Ask of the breezes as they blow,
Say, do they heed, or hear thy call?
They murmur in the trees around,
And mock thy voice, an empty sound!

II.

A hundred summer suns have shower'd
Their fostering warmth, and radiance bright;
A hundred winter storms have lower'd
With piercing floods, and hues of night,
Since first this remnant of his race
Did tenant his lone dwelling-place.

III.

Say, did he come from East, from West?
From Southern climes, or where the Pole,
With frosty sceptre, doth arrest
The howling billows as they roll?
Within what realm of peace or strife
Did he first draw the breath of life?

IV.

Was he of high or low degree?
Did grandeur smile upon his lot?
Or, born to dark obscurity,
Dwelt he within some lowly cot,
And, from his youth to labour wed,
From toil-strung limbs wrung daily bread?

V.

Say, died he ripe, and full of years,
Bow'd down, and bent by hoary eld,
When sound was silence to his ears,
And the dim eyeball sight withheld;
Like a ripe apple falling down,
Unshaken, 'mid the orchard brown;

VI.

When all the friends that bless'd his prime,
Were vanish'd like a morning dream;
Pluck'd one by one by spareless Time,
And scatter'd in oblivion's stream;
Passing away all silently,
Like snow-flakes melting in the sea:

VII.

Or, 'mid the summer of his years,
When round him throng'd his children young,
When bright eyes gush'd with burning tears,
And anguish dwelt on every tongue,
Was he cut off, and left behind
A widow'd wife, scarce half resign'd?

VIII.

Or, 'mid the sunshine of his spring,
Came the swift bolt that dash'd him down;
When she, his chosen, blossoming
In beauty, deem'd him all her own,
And forward look'd to happier years
Than ever bless'd this vale of tears?

IX.

By day, by night, through calm and storm,
O'er distant oceans did he roam,
Far from his land, a lonely form,
The deck his walk, the sea his home:
Toss'd he on wild Biscayan wave,
Or where smooth tides Panama lave?

X.

Slept he within the tented field,
With pillowing daisies for his bed?
Captived in battle, did he yield?
Or plunge to victory o'er the dead?
Oft, 'mid destruction, hath he broke
Through reeking blades and rolling smoke?

XI.

Perhaps he perish'd for the faith—
One of that persecuted band,
Who suffer'd tortures, bonds, and death,
To free from mental thrall the land,
And, toiling for the martyr's fame,
Espoused his fate, nor found a name!

XII.

Say, was he one to science blind,
A groper in Earth's dungeon dark?
Or one who with aspiring mind
Did, in the fair creation, mark
The Maker's hand, and kept his soul
Free from this grovelling world's control?

XIII.

Hush! wild surmise!—'tis vain—'tis vain—
The summer flowers in beauty blow,
And sighs the wind, and floods the rain,
O'er some old bones that rot below;
No other record can we trace
Of fame or fortune, rank or race!

XIV.

Then, what is life, when thus we see
No trace remains of life's career?—
Mortal! whoe'er thou art, for thee
A moral lesson gloweth here;
Putt'st thou in aught of earth thy trust?
'Tis doom'd that dust shall mix with dust.

XV.

What doth it matter, then, if thus,
Without a stone, without a name,
To impotently herald us,
We float not on the breath of fame;
But, like the dewdrop from the flower.
Pass, after glittering for an hour?

XVI.

The soul decays not, freed from earth,
And earthly coils, it bursts away;—
Receiving a celestial birth,
And spurning off its bonds of clay,
It soars, and seeks another sphere,
And blooms through Heaven's eternal year!

XVII.

Do good; shun evil; live not thou,
As if at death thy being died;
Nor Error's syren voice allow
To draw thy steps from truth aside;
Look to thy journey's end—the grave!
And trust in Him whose arm can save.





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