The Graves of a Household
They grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one home with glee,
Their graves are severed far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.
The same fond mother bent at night
O’er each fair sleeping brow,
She had each folded flower in sight,
Where are those dreamers now?
One midst the forests of the West,
By a dark stream, is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest
Far in the cedar’s shade.
The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep,
He was the loved of all, yet none
O’er his low bed may weep.
One sleeps where southern vines are drest
Above the noble slain;
He wrapt his colours round his breast
On a blood-red field of Spain.
And one, o’er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fann’d;
She faded midst Italian flowers,
The last of that bright band.
And, parted thus, they rest—who played
Beneath the same green tree,
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee!
They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheered with song the hearth,
Alas for love, if thou wert all,
And nought beyond, oh earth!