Poems (Gould, 1833)/A Voice from Mount Auburn
A VOICE FROM MOUNT AUBURN.
A voice from Mount Auburn! a voice!—and it said,"Ye have chosen me out as a home for your dead;From the bustle of life ye have rendered me free;My earth ye have hallowed—henceforth I shall beA garden of graves, where your loved ones shall rest!O, who will be first to repose on my breast?
"I now must be peopled from life's busy sphere;Ye may roam, but the end of your journey is here.I shall call! I shall call! and the many will comeFrom the heart of your crowds to so peaceful a home;The great and the good, and the young and the old,In death's dreamless slumbers,my mansions will hold.
"To me shall the child his loved parent resign;And, mother, the babe at thy breast must be mine!The brother and sister for me are to part,And the lover to break from each tie of the heart.I shall rival the bridegroom and take from his side,To sleep in my bosom, his beautiful bride.
"And sweetly secure from all pain they shall lieWhere the dews gently fall and the streams ripple by;While the birds sing their hymns, amid air-harps, that soundThrough the boughs of the forest-trees whispering around.And flowers, bright as Eden's, at morning shall spreadAnd at eve drop their leaves o'er the slumberer's bed!
"But this is all earthly! while thus ye encloseA spot where your ashes in peace may repose—Where the living may come and commune with the dead,With God and his soul, and with reverence treadOn the sod, which he soon may be sleeping below,—Have ye chosen the home where the spirit shall go?
"Shall it dwell where the gardens of Paradise bloom,And flowers are not opening to die on the tomb?With the song of an angel, a vesture of light,Shall it live in a world free from shadow and blight;Where the waters are pure, from a fount never-sealed,And the secrets of heaven are in glory revealed?
"A day hastens on,—and an arm shall then breakThe bars of the tomb—the dread trump shall awakeThe dead from their sleep in the earth and the sea,And, 'Render up thine!' shall be sounded to me!Prepare for that hour, that my people may standUnawed by the scene at the Judge's right hand!"