A Mountain Graveyard

What a sleeping-place is here! O vast mountain, grim and drear, Though, throughout their life’s hard round, To thy sons, in long toil bound, Though fro stony hill and field Didst a scanty sustenance yield, Surely thou art kinder now! Here, beneath the gray cliff’s brow, Sleep they in the hemlocks’ gloom, And no king has prouder tomb.

Far above the clustered mounds, Through the trees the faint wind sounds, Waking in each dusky leaf Sobs of immemorial grief; And while silent years pass by, Dark boughs lifted toward the sky Like wild arms appealing toss, As if there were mad with loss, And with human hearts did share Grief ’s long protest and despair.

No tall marbles, gleaming white, Here reflect the softened light; Yet beside the hillocks green Rude, uncarven stones are seen, Brought there from the mountain side By the mourners’ love and pride. There, too, scattered o’er the grass Of the graves, are bits of glass That with white shells mingled lie. Smile not, ye who pass them by, For the love that placed them there Deemed that they were things most fair.

Now, when from their souls at last Life’s long paltriness has passed, The unending strife for bread That has stunted heart and head, These tired toilers may forget All earth’s trivial care and fret. Haply death may give them more Than they ever dreamed before, And may recompense them quite For all lack of life’s delight; Death may to their gaze unbar Summits vaster, loftier far Than the blue peaks that surround This still-shadowed burial ground.

—Rosemary and Pansies (1909)