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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SONNET IN A CEMETERY, by CHAPMAN JAMES MILLING Poet's Biography
First Line: Where live oaks brooded low against a wall
Last Line: Whose message read, the old days were the best.
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Graveyards
First Line: Where live oaks brooded low against a wall
Last Line: Whose message read, the old days were the best.
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Graveyards
Where live oaks brooded low against a wall
And honeysuckle twined, I knelt alone
To trace the crumbling letters of each stone
Until I learned the history of all.
Sweet Emily, who died at seventeen;
He giveth His beloved sleep, I read
Amanda, Rachel, Agatha, all dead,
Cut down as wasted grain which yet is green.
They all had died because they gave new life;
In prim array each futile headstone stood,
A monument to helpless motherhood --
In memory of Anne, devoted wife --.
I plucked a hoary falsehood from my breast
Whose message read, The old days were the best.
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