In Cornwall and Across the Sea With Poems Written in Devonshire. By Douglas B. W. Sladen |
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GORDON'S TOMB.
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 | In Cornwall and Across the Sea |  |
116
GORDON'S TOMB.
I made a pilgrimage to Gordon's tomb,
And found him buried in a graveyard wild,
By trivial sights and sounds all undefiled,
A sanctuary where field-flow'rs might bloom
Unapprehensive of their general doom
Of being pulled by every wanton child,
Or harrowed out and evermore exiled
For a crude, formal garden to make room.
A broken column with a laurel wreath
Marked where he lay; the murmurs of the sea
He loved in life forsook him not in death;
The locust and the marsh-frog and the bee
Mingled their notes in one melodious breath,
And near him blossomed a young wattle-tree.
And found him buried in a graveyard wild,
By trivial sights and sounds all undefiled,
A sanctuary where field-flow'rs might bloom
Unapprehensive of their general doom
Of being pulled by every wanton child,
Or harrowed out and evermore exiled
For a crude, formal garden to make room.
A broken column with a laurel wreath
Marked where he lay; the murmurs of the sea
He loved in life forsook him not in death;
The locust and the marsh-frog and the bee
Mingled their notes in one melodious breath,
And near him blossomed a young wattle-tree.
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II.
I cried out, surely this is as should be,The wild bard 'mid the wild flow'rs slumbering
In a lone place, where wild birds go to sing,
In earshot of the everlasting sea.
Surely he would not sleep so easily
(If there is after-life and ghosts can wing
A flight to where their bones lie mouldering)
Had he been hemmed about with ceremony,
With monuments of pride and gilt-railed beds
Of far-fetched shrubs and plants. Where now he lies
The wild flow'rs of the new land rear their heads,
And some we used in the old land to prize,
The scarlet pimpernel with sleepy lids,
And brier with bloom so delicate in dyes.
| In Cornwall and Across the Sea | |