THE OLD BURYING-GROUND.
Our vales are sweet with fern and rose,
Our hills are maple-crowned;
But not from them our fathers chose
The village burying-ground.
Our hills are maple-crowned;
But not from them our fathers chose
The village burying-ground.
The dreariest spot in all the land
To Death they set apart;
With scanty grace from Nature's hand,
And none from that of Art.
To Death they set apart;
With scanty grace from Nature's hand,
And none from that of Art.
A winding wall of mossy stone,
Frost-flung and broken, lines
A lonesome acre thinly grown
With grass and wandering vines.
Frost-flung and broken, lines
A lonesome acre thinly grown
With grass and wandering vines.
Without the wall a birch-tree shows
Its drooped and tasselled head;
Within, a stag-horned sumach grows,
Fern-leafed with spikes of red.
Its drooped and tasselled head;
Within, a stag-horned sumach grows,
Fern-leafed with spikes of red.
There, sheep that graze the neighboring plain
Like white ghosts come and go;
The farmhorse drags his fetlock chain,
The cowbell tinkles slow.
Like white ghosts come and go;
The farmhorse drags his fetlock chain,
The cowbell tinkles slow.
