University of Virginia Library

The Cemetery of Harmony Grove

Well is this place a cemetery called;
For here do we unto the earth commit,
With hope in Christ, the forms of those we love;
And say our friends have fallen asleep in Him,
To wait, with us, his Coming, long foretold.
So named they first the spot where martyrs slept,
And saints whose faith had overcome the world;
To show that death o'er them had lost his power.
Here once the sower came, and sowed his seed,
And watched the springing of the new green blade,
So different from the mouldering form below,
And pondered on the lesson Nature taught.
For she, with faithful trust, restores the grain,
Which man unto her bosom doth commit;
Yet tells him not, that he shall live again;
Or only in dim type obscurely speaks.
She makes but credible, what God reveals.
By revelation taught we clearly see
The hidden meaning of her countless forms,
Differing in glory on the earth, in heaven;
And, by analogy, the springing grain
Doth teach us of the body that shall be,
The spiritual body, that shall this succeed;
For reason's powers are limited and weak,
Nor fully can the mystery comprehend.
Earth can restore but that which is her own,
Give back the grain again an hundred fold,
Perpetuate her kinds, beasts, insects, birds,
The individual in the species lost.
Christ is the Resurrection, and the Life;
And, at his Coming, them who sleep shall bring.
With the same beauty do the flowers return,
And with like foliage is the tree new clothed;
But with more glorious bodies shall they come,
Whose life on earth was hid with Christ in God;
When He, who is our Life and Hope, appears.
E'en now are earth and man, though mortal, touched
With foregleams of the bright, immortal dawn.
They followed not myths cunningly devised,
Who have proclaimed the Coming of the Lord;
For they beheld his glory on the mount,
And heard the voice, which came to him from heaven.
No more, as once, neglected and forgot,
A source of superstitious fears to all,
The resting place of those we mourn remains.
Planted with trees, vocal with songs of birds,
Whose music morn and eve fills all the grove;
Adorned with flowers of every hue and kind,
With cheerful hopes we consecrate the grave.
Engraved on humble stone, or splendid tomb,
The holy texts of scripture meet the eye;
Or words of poet speaking heart to heart,
That tell men of a higher life to come.
While thus I tread these much frequented paths,
And hold communion with the loved and mourned;
The mystic veil between us thinner grows,
And nearer seems the time, when Christ shall come
To abolish death, and triumph o'er the grave.