CLVIII The Graves of a Household
They grew in beauty side by side,
They fill’d one home with glee;—
Their graves are sever’d 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 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 play’d
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they pray’d
Around one parent knee;
They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheer’d with song the hearth!—
Alas for love! if thou wert all,
And naught beyond, O, Earth!
F. Hemans