University of Virginia Library


82

ALL SOULS' DAY.
II.

What heavens that grow, what hells that still expand,
Would hold the close-packed souls of all who found
Earth's bread or sweet or bitter, and were bound
In sheaves of shadow by the silent hand—
The close-packed souls of every time and land;
Millions of millions mingled with the ground;
Of all the mounded mummy-dust all round;
Who, back on earth, would fight for room to stand,
Nor find his square foot each?—But dusk has grown;
The fields are empty; day is dying fast;
And, save one figure, all is gray and lone;
The figure of the sower who has cast
Wheat for the quick where countless dead have sown,
And passes ghost-like on his way at last.