Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FUNERAL, by CHARLES SPRAGUE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FUNERAL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Against the wall a lovely picture hung
Last Line: Ye weeping ones, she waits to welcome you.
Subject(s): Funerals; Burials


AGAINST the wall a lovely picture hung,
So true to life, it wanted but a tongue;
'T was a young girl's — the face, though passing fair,
Spoke more of goodness than of beauty there.
Years, years had vanished since the limner's power,
Stealing the sweetness of a passing hour,
Had stamped it there, a little circle's gaze,
The fond memorial of departed days.

Years, years had vanished — where was she whose face
Still from that canvass smiled in girlhood's grace?
A coffin stood beside — I raised the lid —
Alas! another picture there was hid;
What hard, stern hand those pallid features drew?
That cheek, that brow — so false, and yet so true?
'T was she — the same — there in her maiden bloom,
Here cold in death, and waiting for the tomb.

A gray-haired man leaned o'er her where she slept,
Then to the living likeness turned — and wept;
Children, fond, grieving children, looked within,
As if their love one answering look might win;
Vain hope! the eye was dark, and dull the ear
That never, till that hour, refused to hear;
Hushed, even to them, forever hushed the tongue,
On whose sweet lessons they so long had hung.

Turn, mourners, from that face; it tells of gloom;
Around it draw the curtain of the tomb;
Look on this breathing picture of her youth,
See where it smiles, in beauty and in truth;
Like this she lives in her eternal home,
That bright abode where sorrow ne'er can come;
There, in the likeness that her Maker drew,
Ye weeping ones, she waits to welcome you.





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