Easter-Day in a Mountain Churchyard

There is a wakening on the mighty hills,A kindling with the spirit of the morn!Bright gleams are scatter’d from the thousand rills,And a soft visionary hue is bornOn the young foliage, wornBy all the embosom’d woods--a silvery green,Made up of spring and dew, harmoniously serene.

And lo! where, floating through a glory, singsThe lark, alone amidst a crystal sky!Lo! where the darkness of his buoyant wings,Against a soft and rosy cloud on high,Trembles with melody!While the far-echoing solitudes rejoiceTo the rich laugh of music in that voice.

But purer light than of the early sunIs on you cast, O mountains of the earth!And for your dwellers nobler joy is wonThan the sweet echoes of the skylark’s mirth,By this glad morning’s birth!And gifts more precious by its breath are shedThan music on the breeze, dew on the violet’s head.

Gifts for the soul, from whose illumined eyeO’er nature’s face the colouring glory flows;Gifts from the fount of immortality,Which, fill’d with balm, unknown to human woes,Lay hush’d in dark repose,Till thou, bright dayspring! madest its waves our own,By thine unsealing of the burial stone.

Sing, then, with all your choral strains, ye hills!And let a full victorious tone be given,By rock and cavern, to the wind which fillsYour urn-like depths with sound! The tomb is riven,The radiant gate of heavenUnfolded--and the stern, dark shadow castBy death’s o’ersweeping wing, from the earth’s bosom past.

And you, ye graves! upon whose turf I stand,Girt with the slumber of the hamlet’s dead,Time, with a soft and reconciling hand,The covering mantle of bright moss hath spreadO’er every narrow bed:But not by time, and not by nature sownWas the celestial seed, whence round you peace hath grown.

Christ hath arisen! Oh, not one cherish’d headHath, midst the flowery sods, been pillow’d hereWithout a hope, (howe’er the heart hath bledIn its vain yearnings o’er the unconscious bier,)A hope, upspringing clearFrom those majestic tidings of the morn,Which lit the living way to all of woman born.

Thou hast wept mournfully, O human love!E’en on this greensward: night hath heard thy cry,Heart-stricken one! thy precious dust above--Night, and the hills, which sent forth no replyUnto thine agony!But He who wept like thee, thy Lord, thy guide,Christ hath arisen, O love! thy tears shall all be dried.

Dark must have been the gushing of those tears,Heavy the unsleeping phantom of the tombOn thine impassion’d soul, in elder years,When, burden’d with the mystery of its doom,Mortality’s thick gloomHung o’er the sunny world, and with the breathOf the triumphant rose came blending thoughts of death.

By thee, sad Love! and by thy sister, Fear,Then was the ideal robe of beauty wroughtTo vail that haunting shadow, still too near,Still ruling secretly the conqueror’s thought,And where the board was fraughtWith wine and myrtles in the summer bower,Felt, e’en when disavow’d, a presence and a power.

But that dark night is closed: and o’er the dead,Here, where the gleamy primrose-tufts have blown,And where the mountain-heath a couch has spread,And, settling oft on some gray, letter’d stone,The redbreast warbles lone;And the wild-bee’s deep drowsy murmurs pass,Like a low thrill of harp-strings, through the grass:

Here, midst the chambers of the Christian’s sleep,We o’er death’s gulf may look with trusting eye;For Hope sits, dove-like, on the gloomy deep,And the green hills wherein these valleys lieSeem all one sanctuaryOf holiest thought--nor needs their fresh, bright sod,Urn, wreath, or shrine, for tombs all dedicate to God.

Christ hath arisen! O mountain-peaks! attest--Witness, resounding glen and torrent-wave!The immortal courage in the human breastSprung from that victory--tell how oft the braveTo camp midst rock and cave,Nerved by those words, their struggling faith have borne,Planting the cross on high above the clouds of morn!

The Alps have heard sweet hymnings for to-day--Ay, and wild sounds of sterner, deeper toneHave thrill’d their pines, when those that knelt to prayRose up to arm! The pure, high snows have knownA colouring not their own,But from true hearts, which, by that crimson stain,Gave token of a trust that call’d no suffering vain.

Those days are past--the mountains wear no moreThe solemn splendour of the martyr’s blood;And may that awful record, as of yore,Never again be known to field or flood!E’en though the faithful stood,A noble army, in the exulting sightOf earth and heaven, which bless’d their battle for the right!

But many a martyrdom by hearts unshakenIs yet home silently in homes obscure;And many a bitter cup is meekly taken;And, for the strength whereby the just and pureThus steadfastly endure,Glory to Him whose victory won that dower!Him from whose rising stream’d that robe of spirit-power.

Glory to Him! Hope to the suffering breast!Light to the nations! He hath roll’d awayThe mists which, gathering into deathlike rest,Between the soul and heaven’s calm ether lay--His love hath made it dayWith those that sat in darkness. Earth and sea!Lift up glad strains for man by truth divine made free!