Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/In the Graveyard

by Sarah Piatt

For works with similar titles, see In the Graveyard.

IN THE GRAVEYARD.

The sweetness dropped from the cherry-blooms
 Over the sleep that is never stirred,
And the twilight drooped on her purple plumes,
 And fluttered and moaned, like a dying bird,
Till I hid my face in the scented glooms.

The grasses were damp where the thorns had grown;
 The bats flew close to the mouldering staves;
Some wild, white buds, with a windy moan,
 Fell with their faces against the graves,
And the moss-veils hung on the broken stone.

Out of the dim and dusky sky
 A golden blossoming broke ere long,
And glittered and fell on the spring-woods nigh,
 Where a dove was hushing her sleepy song;
And we were together, the dead and I.

"The heart above, with its breaking strings,
 Wails dissonant music, stormy or slow;
But ah! what a beautiful stillness clings,
 Sweet Death," I said "to the hearts below,
That are touched with the calm of your pallid wings.

"But is memory still where the vanished go?"
 Then I thought of a tender dream of the past,
That faded and fell in a passionate woe,
 Like a lotus-flower in a poisoned blast;
And I stared in the shadow and said, "You know.

"Come out of your silence once more, and seem
 The thing that I loved in the years afar,
While the wild-bird flutters and sings in its dream,
 And the yellow bloom of the evening star
Drops, as of old, in the whispering stream."

You came, and I saw the tremulous breeze
 Blow the loose brown hair about your head;
You came, through a murmur of melodies;
 You came, for love can awaken the dead;
You came, and stood by the cherry-trees.

You came, and your white hand was not cold,
 And your quiet eyes they were not dim;
And we watched the moon-rise dripping with gold,
 While the waters chanted a vesper hymn,
And your lip was flushed with the tales it told.

I could see the wings of the sun's pet-birds,
 I could hear the delicate sigh of the shells,
And the giant cry of the seas in your words;
 Yet others had heard but the distant bells,
And seen but the glimmer of rocks and herds.

I whispered like one that is not awake:
 "Does sorrow die with our dying breath?
Did it drop from your life like a wounded snake,
 When the dust of your beauty was touched with death
Oh, tell me,—oh, tell me, for love's sweet sake.

"Say, is memory still where the vanished go?
 Say, Presence out of the spicy zones—
Let your sweet lips whisper the secret low,
 While I wait by the mosses and broken stones:
Ah, you hide in your silence, and yet you know."