Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GOD'S ACRE, by CHARLES KELLOGG FIELD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GOD'S ACRE, by                    
First Line: Oh, so pure the white syringas!
Last Line: Where the children sleep.
Subject(s): God


OH, so pure the white syringas!
Oh, so sweet the lilac bloom
In the Arboretum growing
Near a granite tomb!
By the arching pepper-branches
Let us tender silence keep;
We have come into God's Acre,
Where the children sleep.

In the trees the quail are calling
To the rabbits at their play,
While the little birds, unknowing,
Sing their lives away;
In the night-time through the branches
Wistfully the young stars peep,
But, with all these playmates round them,
Still the children sleep.

Once within that leafy shelter
Some one hid herself, to rest,
With another little dreamer
Folded to her breast;
And a sense of consolation
Stealeth unto them that weep,
While that mother-heart lies sleeping
Where the children sleep.

Year by year the Christmas berries
Redden in the quiet air, --
Year by year the vineyard changes,
Buds and ripens there;
We give place to other faces,
But the years' relentless sweep
Cometh not into God's Acre,
Where the children sleep.





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