Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/Counting the Graves

by Sarah Piatt

COUNTING THE GRAVES.

"How many graves are in this world?" "Oh, child,"
 His mother answered, "surely there are two."
Archly he shook his pretty head and smiled:
 "I mean in this whole world, you know I do."

"Well, then, in this whole world: in East and West
 In North and South, in dew and sand and snow,
In all sad places where the dead may rest:
 There are two graves—yes, there are two, I know."

"But graves have been here for a thousand years,—
 Or, for ten thousand? Soldiers die, and kings;
And Christians die—sometimes." "My own poor tears
 Have never yet been troubled by these things.

. . . "More graves within the hollow ground, in sooth,
 Than there are stars in all the pleasant sky?—
Where did you ever learn such dreary truth,
 Oh, wiser and less selfish far than I."

"I did not know,—I who had light and breath:
 Something to touch, to look at, if no more.
Fair earth to live in, who believes in death,
 Till, dumb and blind, he lies at one's own door?

. . . "I did not know—I may have heard or read—
 Of more; but should I search the wide grass through,
Lift every flower and every thorn," she said,
 "From every grave—oh, I should see but two!"