Poems (Hooper)/The Neglected Grave

by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

THE NEGLECTED GRAVE.

The storm of grief has long since died away,
 Hearts ceased to ache, and fruitless tears to flow;
Behold the grave, unvisited, undecked,
 Forgotten! 'Twas so many years ago.

The rank grass waves in unmolested pride,
 Untrodden now by loving pilgrim feet:
The vagrant rosebush, only, on the mound
 Lays funeral tribute of its blossoms sweet.

Over the headstone creeps the hiding moss,
 Blotting the graven words with fingers slow:
The wand'ring vine there hangs unchecked its veil—
 None seek to read the mournful record now.

Who slumbers there? No answer from the stone:
 No mourners near give tender sad reply;
The echoes knew the name once; but the breeze
 Bears no response upon its passing sigh.

This grave once darkened earth for many hearts:
 Life lost its lustre and the sun its gold;
And woeful weepers wailed, "Console us, Death!
 Earth holds no consolation." Now, behold!

Forgotten! By the death-bed stands Despair:
 Then comes a space of agony and weeping;
And then the world goes on, the mourners smile,
 And Joy awakes, although the loved lie sleeping.

Ah, loving God! that bring'st Time's healing balm
 To bruiséd hearts that else would break with-sorrow—
That grants soft slumbers to the night of Grief,
 And sends the splendors of a new to-morrow,—

Thou didst not will it so, that we should weep
 Over dear graves forever and forever:
'Tis Thou that whisperest tenderly, "Some day,"
 When we in anguish cry, "Ah, never! never!"

Nor do we all forget, when kindly Time
 Has bidden us to cease despair and weeping:
Sorrow may perish, but within our hearts
 Love dwells forever—Love, not dead but sleeping.

And the dear dead! they blame us not to-day
 For eyes that weep not, lips that learn new smiling;
Yet they forget us not—the perfect love
 Of heaven knows no changing or beguiling.

Beyond the dread gate dwell the loved and lost,
 Waiting till we, the living, pass the portal,
Leaving behind the world's bewilderments,
 And bearing with us only love immortal.

Fair forms shall greet us then, whose eyes will lend
 New light to quicken Memory's smould'ring ember,
And voices long unheard shall cry aloud,
 "Remember us!" and we shall straight remember.

So better thus: the lonely mound, where come
 The vagrant vines to deck the fading sod,
The tear-drops of the rain, the wind's soft sigh,
 And over all the unforgetting God!