| |
| I STOOD amid the dwellings of the dead, | |
| And saw the gayest city of the earth | |
| Spread out beneath me. Cloud and sunlight lay | |
| Upon her palaces and gilded domes, | |
| In slumbrous beauty. Through the streets flowed on, | 5 |
| In ceaseless stream, gay equipage and throng, | |
| As fashion led the way. Look up! look up! | |
| Mont Louis hath a beacon. Wheresoe’er | |
| Ye seem to tend, so lightly dancing on | |
| In your enchanted maze, a secret spell | 10 |
| Is on your footsteps, and unseen they haste | |
| Where ye would not, and whence ye ne’er return. | |
| Blind pilgrims are we all! We close our eyes | |
| On the swift torrent that o’erwhelms our race, | |
| And in our spanlike path the goal forget, | 15 |
| Until the shadows lengthen, and we sink | |
To rise no more.
Methinks the monster Death | |
| Wears not such visage here, so grim and gaunt | |
| With terror, as he shows in other lands. | |
| Robing himself in sentiment, he wraps | 20 |
| His dreary trophies in a maze of flowers, | |
| And makes his tombs like temples, or a home | |
| So sweet to love, that grief doth fleet away. | |
| I saw a mother mourning. The fair tomb | |
| Was like a little chapel, hung with wreath | 25 |
| And crucifix. And there she spread the toys | |
| That her lost babe had loved, as if she found | |
| A solace in the memory of its sports. | |
| Tears flowed like pearl-drops, yet without the pang | |
| That wrings and rends the heart-strings. It would seem | 30 |
| A tender sorrow, scarce of anguish born, | |
| So much the influence of surrounding charms | |
Did mitigate it.
Mid the various groups | |
| That visited the dead, I marked the form | |
| Of a young female winding through the shades. | 35 |
| Just at that point she seemed where childhood melts | |
| But half away, like snows that feel the sun, | |
| Yet, shrinking closer to their shaded nook, | |
| Delay to swell the sparkling stream of youth. | |
| She had put off her sabots at the gate, | 40 |
| Heavy with clay, and to a new-made grave | |
| Hasted alone. Upon its wooden cross | |
| She placed her chaplet, and with whispering lips, | |
| Perchance in prayer, perchance in converse low | |
| With the loved slumberer, knelt, and strewed the seeds | 45 |
| Of flowers among the mould. A shining mass | |
| Of raven tresses ’scaped amid the toil | |
| From their accustomed boundary; but her eyes, | |
| None saw them, for she heeded not the tread | |
| Of passers-by. Her business was with those | 50 |
| Who slept below. ’T would seem a quiet grief, | |
| And yet absorbing; such as a young heart | |
| Might for a sister feel, ere it had learned | |
A deeper love.
Come to yon stately dome, | |
| With arch and turret, every shapely stone | 55 |
| Breathing the legends of the Paraclete, | |
| Where slumber Abelard and Heloise, | |
| ’Neath such a world of wreaths, that scarce ye see | |
| Their marble forms recumbent, side by side. | |
| On! on! this populous spot hath many a fane, | 60 |
| To win the stranger’s admiration. See | |
| La Fontaine’s fox-crowned cenotaph; and his | |
| Whose “Mécanique Celeste” hath writ his name | |
| Among the stars; and hers who, soaring high | |
| In silken globe, found a strange death by fire | 65 |
Amid the clouds.
The dead of distant lands | |
| Are gathered here. In pomp of sculpture sleeps | |
| The Russian Demidoff, and Britain’s sons | |
| Have crossed the foaming sea, to leave their dust | |
| In a strange soil. Yea, from my own far land | 70 |
| They ’ve wandered here, to die. Were there not graves | |
| Enough among our forests, by the marge | |
| Of our broad streams, amid the hallowed mounds | |
| Of early kindred, that ye needs must come | |
| This weary way, to share the strangers’ bed, | 75 |
| My people? I could weep to find ye here! | |
| And yet your names are sweet, the words ye grave, | |
| In the loved language of mine infancy, | |
| Most pleasant to the eye, involved so long | |
Mid foreign idioms.
Yonder height doth boast | 80 |
| The warrior-chiefs, who led their legions on | |
| To sack, and siege; whose flying tramp disturbed | |
| The Cossack in his hut, the Alpine birds, | |
| Who build above the cloud, and Egypt’s slaves, | |
| Crouching beneath their sky-crowned pyramids. | 85 |
| How silent are they all! No warning trump | |
| Amid their host! No steed! No footstep stirs | |
| Of those who rushed to battle! Haughtily | |
| The aspiring marble tells each pausing group | |
| Their vaunted fame. O shades of mighty men! | 90 |
| Went these proud honors with you, where the spear | |
| And shield resound no more? Cleaves the blood-stain | |
| Around ye there? Steal the deep-echoing groans | |
| Of those who fell, the cry of those who mourned, | |
| Across the abyss that bars you from our sight, | 95 |
Waking remorseful pangs?
We may not ask | |
| With hope of answer. But the time speeds on, | |
When all shall know.
There is the lowly haunt | |
| Where rest the poor. No towering obelisk | |
| Beareth their name. No blazoned tablet tells | 100 |
| Their joys or sorrows. Yet ’t is sweet to muse | |
| Around their pillow of repose, and think | |
| That Nature mourns their loss, though man forget. | |
| The lime-tree and acacia, side by side, | |
| Spring up, in haste to do their kindly deed | 105 |
| Of sheltering sympathy, as though they knew | |
Their time was short.
Sweet Nature ne’er forgets | |
| Her buried sons, but cheers their summer-couch | |
| With turf and dewdrops, bidding autumn’s hand | |
| Drop lingering garlands of its latest leaves, | 110 |
| And glorious spring from wintry thraldom burst, | |
| To bring their type of Immortality. | |
| |
