Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY, by JANE REBECCA THOMAS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY, by                    
First Line: The grave is clad in beauty! Nature's hand
Last Line: When from its gloom a conqueror he rose.
Subject(s): Cambridge, Massachusetts; Cemeteries; Graveyards


THE grave is clad in beauty! Nature's hand
Profuse hath scattered of her gifts around;
Here to the eye of day fair flowers expand,
Perfume the glade, and gem the broken ground.
Here forest trees arise, a varied band,
And waters still by willowy margins bound;
Here weep the dews, and through the bosky dell
The breezes come with greeting and farewell.

The grave is clad in beauty! Art hath given
Her aid to those who mourn, and mid the shade
Gleams emblematic sculpture, -- columns riven,
Lamps shattered, rosebuds broken and decayed;
Pale crosses pointing through the trees to heaven,
And infant forms in graceful slumber laid;
And massive doors against the green hill's side,
Sealed till the angel's voice those bonds divide.

The grave is clad in beauty! It is well;
Why should we burden more the weary heart,
Or add still deeper pangs to those that swell
The weeping eyes, or causelessly impart
External gloom, where all should kindly tell
Of better joys than such as thus depart;
Of hope beyond the marble and the sod,
And blessings for the dead who die in God?

Be reverent here, and think of Him whose tomb
Was in a garden laid; who bore away
From death the sting, the terror, and the gloom
That, mingled in his cup of trembling, lay;
Who sanctified our universal doom,
And gladness gave to it for chill dismay,
And beautified the place of man's repose,
When from its gloom a conqueror he rose.





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