THE OLD CHURCHYARD.[_]
The attribution of this poem is questionable.
She sleeps in the old churchyard, down in yonder dell,
All along the brink of Greta's murmuring bed;
Name nor history can the idle torrent tell,
But it talks on idly ever, to the long forgotten dead.
The sound of bells long since, that ruin has forgot,
Nor ever more shall echo to the chanted psalm.
Thickly now the dockweed overspreads the spot,
And it seems accurst to me, so dreadful is its calm.
Name and date on every grey old tombstone are effaced—
Date and name that now no more in any heart are kept.
The sun shines brightly, but it cannot cheer the waste,
Where those deserted ones so deep and long have slept.
In silence she has slept there, for these thirty years,
Whilst you were living happy in the light of day,
Nor ever gave a thought, I ween, to all the tears
Which wasted so much love to lifeless, “loveless clay.”
For that which once you said, now you remember not,
There was no one by to witness what your eyes professed,
Only she remembered all that you forgot,
Till her heart had broken, and all memory was at rest.
Long since, you brought your bride in triumph to her door,
Long since, she bade you for evermore farewell;
And she has been asleep these thirty years and more,
In the old churchyard yonder, down in the lonely dell.
