Do they think 'twill be cold when the waters
That they love not, that neither can love them,
Shall eternally thunder above them?

Have they dread of the sea's shining daughters,
That people the bright sea-regions

And play with the young sea-kings?

Have they dread of their cold embraces,
And dread of all strange sea-things?

But their dread or their joy,—it is bootless:
They shall pass from the breast of their mother;

They shall lie low, dead brother by brother,

In a place that is radiant and fruitless;

And the folk that sail over their heads

In violent weather

Shall come down to them, haply, and all

They shall lie there, together.

Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]

THE INDIAN BURYING-GROUND

In spite of all the learned have said,
I still my old opinion keep;
The posture that we give the dead
Points out the soul's eternal sleep.

Not so the ancients of these lands;-
The Indian, when from life released,
Again is seated with his friends,

And shares again the joyous feast.

His imaged birds, and painted bowl,
And venison, for a journey dressed,
Bespeak the nature of the soul,
Activity, that wants no rest.

His bow for action ready bent,

And arrows with a head of stone,
Can only mean that life is spent,

And not the old ideas gone.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith, that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair garden of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume

With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.

With thy rude plowshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;

This is the field and Acre of our God,

This is the place where human harvests grow.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

THE CITY OF THE DEAD

THEY do neither plight nor wed

In the city of the dead,

In the city where they sleep away the hours;
But they lie, while o'er them range
Winter blight and Summer change,

And a hundred happy whisperings of flowers.
No, they neither wed nor plight,

And the day is like the night,

For their vision is of other kind than ours.

They do neither sing nor sigh

In that burg of by and by,

Where the streets have grasses growing cool and long;

But they rest within their bed,

Leaving all their thoughts unsaid,

Deeming silence better far than sob or song.

No, they neither sigh nor sing,

Though the robin be a-wing,

Though the leaves of Autumn march a million strong.

There is only rest and peace

In the City of Surcease

From the failings and the wailings 'neath the sun,

And the wings of the swift years

Beat but gently o'er the biers,

Every one.

w that life is done. ard Burton [1859

T I LOVE

of Light;

rtains of the Night,

hen the Noon is still.

ll of Peace;

e faint and far,

highway cease,
comes the Star.

full of Dreams;
and bliss that waits,
e of sunset gleams,
of the Golden Gates.

s full of Rest;

where His dear ones lie, he kind earth's breast, dawning up the sky.

ep with them awhile,

, with them, that glorious Day,

e of the Master's smile,

shall be swept away!

Florence L. Henderson [18

OLD SEXTON

that was newly made,

old on his earth-worn spade; one, and he paused to wait in at the open gate.

A relic of by-gone days was he,

And his locks were gray as the foamy sea;
And these words came from his lips so thin:
"I gather them in-I gather them in-
Gather-gather-gather them in.

"I gather them in; for man and boy,
Year after year of grief and joy,
I've builded the houses that lie around
In every nook of this burial-ground,
Mother and daughter, father and son,
Come to my solitude, one by one;

But come they stranger, or come they kin,
I gather them in-I gather them in.

"Many are with me, yet I'm alone;

I'm King of the Dead, and I make my throne
On a monument slab of marble cold-

My scepter of rule is the spade I hold.

Come they from cottage, or come they from hall,
Mankind are my subjects, all, all, all!

May they loiter in pleasure, or toilfully spin,
I gather them in-I gather them in.

"I gather them in, and their final rest

Is here, down here, in the earth's dark breast!"
And the sexton ceased as the funeral-train
Wound mutely over that solemn plain;
And I said to myself: When time is told,
A mightier voice than that sexton's old,
Will sound o'er the last trump's dreadful din:
"I gather them in-I gather them in-
Gather-gather-gather them in."

Park Benjamin [1809-1864]

GRAVE-DIGGER'S SONG

From "Prince Lucifer"

THE crab, the bullace, and the sloe,

They burgeon in the Spring;

And, when the west wind melts the snow,
The redstarts build and sing,