The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir | ||
III.
Oh, when should we visit the graves of the dead,
To hallow the memory of days that are fled?
To hallow the memory of days that are fled?
At Evening,—when the flowery meadows
With the haze of twilight begin to fill,
And darkly afar the eastward shadows
Stretch from the peaks of the sunless hill;
When the laggard oxen from fields of clover
Low mournfully as on they roam;
And, with sooty wing, sails slowly over
The night-o'ertaken crow to its home:
Oh, then the forms of the dear departed
Float, spectre-like, in Fancy's eye—
They come—the pale—the broken-hearted—
They come—the mirthful—flitting by;
We scan their features, we list their voices,
The sights, the sounds of remembered years—
This in its buoyant tone rejoices,
That softly thrills on the brink of tears.
With the haze of twilight begin to fill,
And darkly afar the eastward shadows
Stretch from the peaks of the sunless hill;
When the laggard oxen from fields of clover
Low mournfully as on they roam;
And, with sooty wing, sails slowly over
The night-o'ertaken crow to its home:
Oh, then the forms of the dear departed
Float, spectre-like, in Fancy's eye—
They come—the pale—the broken-hearted—
They come—the mirthful—flitting by;
264
The sights, the sounds of remembered years—
This in its buoyant tone rejoices,
That softly thrills on the brink of tears.
Oh, alas! and alas!
Green grows the grass—
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass!
Green grows the grass—
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass!
The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir | ||