Classic Poem

In the faith of Him who saw
The eternal morning rise,
Through the open gates of pearl,
On the hills of Paradise,—

Looking to the promised land,
Saw the verdant palms, that wave
In the calm and lustrous air,
Through the shadows of the grave;

In his name whose deathless love,
With a glory all divine,
Filled the garden sepulchre
Far away in Palestine;

We would consecrate a place
Where our loved ones may repose,
When the storms of life are past,
And the weary eyelids close;

Fairer than a festal hall
Wreath the chambers of their rest,
Sacred to the tears that fall
O'er the slumbers of the blest,—

Sacred to the hopes that rise
Heavenward from this vale of tears,
Soaring, with unwearied wing,
Through the illimitable years.

Each sweet nursling of the spring
Here shall weep its fresh'ning dews;
Here its fragile censer swing,
And all its fragrant soul diffuse.

The lily, in her white symar,
Fondly o'er the turf shall wave;
Asphodels and violets star
All the greensward of the grave.

Here the pale anemone
In the April breeze shall nod,
And the may-flower weave her blooms
Through and through the velvet sod.

Bending by the storied urn,
Purple eglantine shall blow,
Till the pallid marble takes,
From her cheek, a tender glow.

Where the folding branches close
In a verdant coronal,
Through their dim and dreaming boughs
Faintly shall the sunbeams fall.

Memories, mournful, yet how sweet!
Here shall weave their mystic spell;
Angels tread, with silent feet,
Paths where love and sorrow dwell.

No rude sound of earth shall break
The dim quiet, evermore;
But the winds and waves shall chant
A requiem on the lonely shore.

Flitting through the laurel's gloom,
The humming-bird shall wander by,
Winnowing the floral bloom
From cups of wreathèd ivory.

The bee shall wind his fairy horn,
Faintly murmuring on the ear;
Sounds that seem of silence born
Soothe the soul of sadness here;

Many a low and mystic word,
From the realm of shadows sent,
In the busy throng unheard,
Make the silence eloquent:

Words of sweetest promise, spoken
Only where the dirge is sung;
Where the golden bowl is broken,
And the silver chord unstrung.

Faith shall, with uplifted eye,
All the solitude illume;
Hope and Memory shall sit,
Shining seraphs, by the tomb.