Poems (Procter)/The Unknown Grave
THE UNKNOWN GRAVE.
O name to bid us know Who rests below,No word of death or birth, Only the grass's wave,Over a mound of earth, Over a nameless grave.Did this poor wandering heart In pain depart?Longing, but all too late, For the calm home again,Where patient watchers wait, And still will wait in vain.
Did mourners come in scorn, And thus forlorn Leave him, with grief and shame, To silence and decay,And hide the tarnished name Of the unconscious clay?
It may be from his side His loved ones died,And, last of some bright band, (Together now once more,)He sought his home, the land Where they had gone before.
No matter,—limes have made As cool a shade,And lingering breezes pass As tenderly and slow,As if beneath the grass A monarch slept below.
No grief, though loud and deep, Could stir that sleep;And earth and heaven tell Of rest that shall not cease,Where the cold world's farewell Fades into endless peace.