Landon in The Literary Gazette 1829/The First Grave
21
Literary Gazette, 29th August, 1829, Page 571
ORIGINAL POETRY.
THE FIRST GRAVE.
[We are indebted for the following pathetic little poem to the circumstance of the first grave being formed in the churchyard of the new church at Brompton: the place was recently a garden, and some of the flowers yet show themselves among the graves, where this one tenant, the forerunner of its population, has taken up his last abode.]
A Single grave!—the only one
In this unbroken ground,
Where yet the garden leaf and flower
Are lingering around.
A single grave!—my heart has felt
How utterly alone
In crowded halls, where breathed for me
Not one familiar tone;
The shade where forest-trees shut out
All but the distant sky;—
I've felt the loneliness of night
When the dark winds past by;
My pulse has quickened with its awe,
My lip has gasped for breath;
But what were they to such as this—
The solitude of death!
A single grave!—we half forget
How sunder human ties,
When round the silent place of rest
A gathered kindred lies.
We stand beneath the haunted yew,
And watch each quiet tomb;
And in the ancient churchyard feel
Solemnity, not gloom:
The place is purified with hope,
The hope that is of prayer;
And human love, and heavenward thought,
And pious faith, are there.
The wild flowers spring amid the grass;
And many a stone appears,
Carved by affection's memory,
Wet with affection's tears.
The golden chord which binds us all
Is loosed, not rent in twain;
And love, and hope, and fear unite
To bring the past again.
But this grave is so desolate,
With no remembering stone,
No fellow-graves for sympathy—
’Tis utterly alone.
I do not know who sleeps beneath,
His history or name—
Whether if, lonely in his life,
He is in death the same:
Whether he died unloved, unmourned,
The last leaf on the bough;
Or if some desolated hearth
Is weeping for him now.
Perhaps this is too fanciful:—
Though single be his sod,
Yet not the less it has around
The presence of his God.
It may be weakness of the heart,
But yet its kindliest, best:
Better if in our selfish world
It could be less represt.
Those gentler charities which draw
Man closer with his kind—
Those sweet humanities which make
The music which they find.
How many a bitter word 'twould hush—
How many a pang 'twould save,
If life more precious held those ties
Which sanctify the grave!
L. E. L.