“It shall be in some paradise of graves,
  Where Sun and Shade do hold alternate watch;
  Where Willows sad trail low their tender green,
  And pious Elms build arches worshipful,
  O’ertowered by solemn Pines, in whose dark tops
  Enchanted storm-winds sigh through summer-nights;
  The stalwart exile from fair Lombardy,
  And slender Aspens, whose quiet, watchful leaves
  Give silver challenge to the passing breeze,
  And softly flash and clash like fairy shields,
  Shall sentinel that quiet camping ground;
  The glow and grace of flowers will flood those mounds
  An ever-widening sea of billowy bloom;
  And not least lovely shall my grave-sod be,
  With Myrtles blue, and nestling Violets,
  And Star-flowers pale with watching—­Pansies, dark,
  With mourning thoughts, and Lilies saintly pure;
  Deep-hearted Roses, sweet as buried love,
  And Woodbine-blossoms dripping honeyed dew
  Over a tablet and a sculptured name. 
  There little song-birds, careless of my sleep,
  Shall shake fine raptures from their throats, and thrill
  With life’s triumphant joy the ear of Death;
  And lovely, gauzy creatures of an hour
  Preach immortality among the graves. 
  The chime of silvery waters shall be there—­
  A pleasant stream that winds among the flowers,
  But lingers not, for that it ever hears,
  Through leagues of wood and field and towered town,
  The great sea calling from his secret deeps.”

  ’Twas here, methought or dreamed, an angel came
  And stood beside my couch, and bent on me
  A face of solemn questioning, still and stern,
  But passing beautiful, and searched my soul
  With steady eyes, the while he seemed to say.

  What hast thou done here, child, that thy poor dust
  Should lie embosomed in such loveliness? 
  Why should the gracious trees stand guard o’er thee? 
  Hast thou aspired, like them, through all thy life,
  And rest and healing with thy shadow cast? 
  Have deeds of thine brightened the world like flowers,
  And sweetened it with holiest charities?

* * * * *

=_Edmund Clarence Stedman,[98] 1833-._=

From “The Blameless Prince and other Poems.”

=_423._= THE MOUNTAINS.

  Two thousand feet in air it stands
  Betwixt the bright and shaded lands,
  Above the regions it divides
  And borders with its furrowed sides. 
  The seaward valley laughs with light
  Till the round sun o’erhangs this height;
  But then, the shadow of the crest
  No more the plains that lengthen west
  Enshrouds, yet slowly, surely creeps
  Eastward, until the coolness steeps
  A darkling league of tilth and wold,
  And chills the flocks that seek their fold.