Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYMN WRITTEN FOR THE DEDICATION OF A CEMETERY, by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HYMN WRITTEN FOR THE DEDICATION OF A CEMETERY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Beside the river's dark green flow
Last Line: The beauty of their rest.
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Graveyards


Beside the River's dark green flow,
Here, where the pinetrees weep,
Red Autumn's winds will coldly blow
Above their dreamless sleep:

Their sleep, for whom with prayerful breath
We've put apart today
This spot, for shadowed walks of Death,
And gardens of decay.

This crumbling bank with Autumn crowned,
These pining woodland ways,
Seem now no longer common ground;
But each in turn conveys

A saddened sense of something more:
Is it the dying year?
Or a dim shadow, sent before,
Of the next gathering here?

Is it that He, the silent Power,
Has now assumed the place
And drunk the light of morning's hour,
The life of Nature's grace?

Not so--the spot is beautiful,
And holy is the sod;
'Tis we are faint, our eyes are dull;
All else is fair in God.

So let them lie, their graves bedecked,
Whose bones these shades invest,
Nor grief deny, nor fear suspect,
The beauty of their rest.





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