The Antique Sepulchre

O ever-joyous bandOf revellers amidst the southern vines!On the pale marble, by some gifted hand,Fix’d in undying lines!

Thou, with the sculptured bowl,And thou, that wearest the immortal wreath,And thou, from whose young lip and flute the soulOf music seems to breathe;

And ye, luxuriant flowers!Linking the dancers with your graceful ties,And cluster’d fruitage, born of sunny hours,Under Italian skies:

Ye, that a thousand springs,And leafy summers with their odorous breath,May yet outlast,--what do ye there, bright things!Mantling the place of death?

Of sunlight and soft air,And Dorian reeds, and myrtles ever green,Unto the heart a glowing thought ye bear;--Why thus, where dust hath been?

Is it to show how slightThe bound that severs festivals and tombs,Music and silence, roses and the blight,Crowns and sepulchral glooms?

Or, when the father laidHaply his child’s pale ashes here to sleep,When the friend visited the cypress shadeFlowers o’er the dead to heap;

Say if the mourners sought,In these rich images of summer mirth,These wine-cups and gay wreaths, to lose the thoughtOf our last hour on earth?

Ye have no voice, no sound,Ye flutes and lyres! to tell me what I seek:Silent ye are, light forms with vine-leaves crown’d,Yet to my soul ye speak.

Alas! for those that layDown in the dust without their hope of old!Backward they look’d on life’s rich banquet-day,But all beyond was cold.

Every sweet wood-note then,And through the plane-trees every sunbeam’s glow,And each glad murmur from the homes of men,Made it more hard to go.

But we, when life grows dim,When its last melodies float o’er our way,Its changeful hues before us faintly swim,Its flitting lights decay;--

E’en though we bid farewellUnto the spring’s blue skies and budding trees,Yet may we lift our hearts in hope to dwellMidst brighter things than these;

And think of deathless flowers,And of bright streams to glorious valleys given,And know the while, how little dream of oursCan shadow forth of heaven.