Poems (Dorr)/"O Earth! Art Thou not Weary?"
"O EARTH! ART THOU NOT WEARY?"
O Earth! art thou not weary of thy graves?
Dear, patient mother Earth, upon thy breast
How are they heaped from farthest east to west!
From the dim north, where the wild storm-wind raves
O'er the cold surge that chills the shore it laves,
To sunlit isles by softest seas caressed,
Where roses bloom alway and song-birds nest,
How thick they lie—like flecks upon the waves!
There is no mountain-top so far and high,
No desert so remote, no vale so deep,
No spot by man so long untenanted,
But the pale moon, slow marching up the sky,
Sees over some lone grave the shadows creep!
O Earth! art thou not weary of thy dead?
Dear, patient mother Earth, upon thy breast
How are they heaped from farthest east to west!
From the dim north, where the wild storm-wind raves
O'er the cold surge that chills the shore it laves,
To sunlit isles by softest seas caressed,
Where roses bloom alway and song-birds nest,
How thick they lie—like flecks upon the waves!
There is no mountain-top so far and high,
No desert so remote, no vale so deep,
No spot by man so long untenanted,
But the pale moon, slow marching up the sky,
Sees over some lone grave the shadows creep!
O Earth! art thou not weary of thy dead?