University of Virginia Library


86

IN A CHURCHYARD

How strange, beneath the blue and happy sky
And the reviving greenery of the trees
So pale their shadow blows along the breeze,
To read on polished graves the little cry
Of this delirious immortality!
Well was it said for all, for each of these
“The poor in heart,” who still in death displease
The flowers and wind and youth that passes by.
How but for them the children of the earth
Here, where the grass is fresh and glittering,
Would share with herb and beast the common birth!
And when they 'd played away this day of Spring
How sweetly would they fold at evening
Their petals, hands, and wings at nature's hearth.