Poems (Spofford)/Between the Graves
BETWEEN THE GRAVES.MAY 30.
Where blood once quenched the camp-fire's brand,On every sod throughout the land The silver showers slip softly down;On every sod some growing stem Lifts to the light a shining crown.
For underneath her bending blue,With leaf and sunshine, moon and dew, Glad nature gilds the graveside gloom,Nor asks what passions stirred the dust Through which her pulses spring to bloom.
While from the gardens of the South,Like blessings blown from some warm mouth, The wooing wind steals all day long,Steals lingeringly from grave to grave With breath of blossom, breath of song.
A common flag, breeze, showers, and flowers,Are weaving all these sunny hours, Where broken hearts and hopes are hid,And the great mother on each bed Lays it, a fragrant coverlid.
You, who with garlands go about,As the tree-tilting bird pours out O'er either mound his singing bliss,Oh, kind as birds and breezes, leave A flower on that grave, and on this!
For, lo, the eternal truce of deathWas called upon the passing breath, And all the phantom hates, that shedTheir shadows round us as they stalked, Have no remembrance with the dead!