Classic Poem

The men who lay in Potter's Field
Slept well in borrowed graves,
A world of souls that death had healed,
A million worthless knaves,
The unclaimed poor, laid row on row,
Close in their naked bed,
Rested in peace and did not know
A debt may bind the dead.

In ease they slept—the thief, the drone
Who starved upon his feet,
The quaking beggar and the crone,
Found in the public street,
The laggard, shadow folk who passed,
Or shivered as they stood,
Stumbled into a bed at last,
For which they chopped no wood!

And as they slept, they little knew,
How in the sun's gold grace,
The eager city pushed and grew
And claimed their resting-place,
Until—they would have laughed, these men,
Dumb in the crowded dark—
A weighty council and a pen
Made Potter's Field a park.

A park with benches, shade and moss,
Green in the traffic din,
A spot for happy feet to cross—
The city bade them in;
Yet strange it was to see who came
And sat beneath the trees,
Gray men with leaden eyes the same
And hands upon their knees.

A laggard, shadow host they stole
Across the friendly lawn,
As they were tethered by the soul,
Nor knew why they were drawn;
But sat them down, the spent, the lean,
Alone, yet side by side,
A Potter's Field in gold and green,
The dead who have not died!