A Fragment

Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our siresLeft not their churchyards unadorned with shadesOr blossoms; and indulgent to the strongAnd natural dread of man's last home, the grave,Its frost and silence--they disposed around,To soothe the melancholy spirit that dweltToo sadly on life's close, the forms and huesOf vegetable beauty.--There the yew,Green even amid the snows of winter, toldOf immortality, and gracefullyThe willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;And there the gadding woodbine crept about,And there the ancient ivy. From the spotWhere the sweet maiden, in her blossoming yearsCut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and handsThat trembled as they placed her there, the roseSprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spokeHer graces, than the proudest monument.There children set about their playmate's graveThe pansy. On the infant's little bed,Wet at its planting with maternal tears,Emblem of early sweetness, early death,Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames,And maids that would not raise the reddened eye--Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joyFled early,--silent lovers, who had givenAll that they lived for to the arms of earth,Came often, o'er the recent graves to strewTheir offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers.

The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keepTheir Sabbaths in the eye of God alone,In his wide temple of the wilderness,Brought not these simple customs of the heartWith them. It might be, while they laid their deadBy the vast solemn skirts of the old groves,And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowersAbout their graves; and the familiar shadesOf their own native isle, and wonted blooms,And herbs were wanting, which the pious handMight plant or scatter there, these gentle ritesPassed out of use. Now they are scarcely known,And rarely in our borders may you meetThe tall larch, sighing in the burying-place,Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hideThe gleaming marble. Naked rows of gravesAnd melancholy ranks of monumentsAre seen instead, where the coarse grass, between,Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the windHisses, and the neglected bramble nigh,Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand,In vain--they grow too near the dead. Yet here,Nature, rebuking the neglect of man,Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone,The brier rose, and upon the broken turfThat clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry vineSprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forthHer ruddy, pouting fruit.