The Burial-Place. - A Fragment.

Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires     Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades     Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong     And natural dread of man's last home, the grave,     Its frost and silence, they disposed around,     To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt     Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues     Of vegetable beauty. There the yew,     Green even amid the snows of winter, told     Of immortality, and gracefully     The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;     And there the gadding woodbine crept about,     And there the ancient ivy. From the spot     Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years     Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands     That trembled as they placed her there, the rose     Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke     Her graces, than the proudest monument.     There children set about their playmate's grave     The pansy. On the infant's little bed,     Wet at its planting with maternal tears,     Emblem of early sweetness, early death,     Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames,     And maids that would not raise the reddened eye,     Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy     Fled early, silent lovers, who had given     All that they lived for to the arms of earth,     Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew     Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers.     The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep     Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone,     In his wide temple of the wilderness,     Brought not these simple customs of the heart     With them. It might be, while they laid their dead     By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves,     And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers     About their graves; and the familiar shades     Of their own native isle, and wonted blooms,     And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand     Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites     Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely known,     And rarely in our borders may you meet     The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place,     Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide     The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves     And melancholy ranks of monuments     Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between,     Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind     Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh,     Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand,     In vain, they grow too near the dead. Yet here,     Nature, rebuking the neglect of man,     Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone,     The brier rose, and upon the broken turf     That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry vine     Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth     Her ruddy, pouting fruit. * * * * *