 | The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir |  |
IV.
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 Midnight,—when the skies are clouded,
The stars seal'd up, and the winds abroad;
When earth in a dreary pall is shrouded,
And sere leaves strew the uncertain road;
When desolate tones are around us moaning,
O'er gravestone grey, and through ruined aisle;
When startled ravens croak, and the groaning
Tempest uptosses forests the while—
Then let us pause by ourselves, and listen
To nature's dirge over human life;
And the heart will throb, the eye will glisten,
When Memory glances to prospects rife
With pleasures, which Time's rude whirlwind banish'd,
With meteor visions that flamed and fled,
With friends that smiled, and smiling vanish'd
To make their lone homes with the dead.
The stars seal'd up, and the winds abroad;
When earth in a dreary pall is shrouded,
And sere leaves strew the uncertain road;
When desolate tones are around us moaning,
O'er gravestone grey, and through ruined aisle;
When startled ravens croak, and the groaning
Tempest uptosses forests the while—
Then let us pause by ourselves, and listen
To nature's dirge over human life;
And the heart will throb, the eye will glisten,
When Memory glances to prospects rife
With pleasures, which Time's rude whirlwind banish'd,
With meteor visions that flamed and fled,
With friends that smiled, and smiling vanish'd
To make their lone homes with the dead.
265
For 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 | |