Across the meadow, by the ancient pines,
Where I, the child of life that lived that spring,
Drink in the fragrances of the young year,
The field-wall meets one grimly squared and straight.
Beyond it rise the old tombs, gray and restful,
And the upright slates record the generations.
Stiffly aslant before the northern blasts,
Like the steadfast, angular beliefs
Of those whom they commemorate, the headstones stand,
Cemented deep with moss and invisible roots.
The rude inscriptions charged with faith and love,
Graceless as Death himself, yet sweet as Death,
Are half erased by the impartial storms.
As children lisping words which move to laughter
Are themselves poems of unconscious melody,
So the old gravestones with their crabbed muse
Are beautiful for their halting words of faith,
Their groping love that had no gift of song.
But all the broken tragedy of life
And all the yearning mystery of death
Are celebrated in sweet epitaphs of vines and violets.
Close by the wall a peristyle of pines
Sings requiem to all the dead that sleep.

Beyond the village churchyard, still and calm,
Steeped in the sweetness of eternal morn,
The wall runs down in crumbling cadence
Beside the brook which plays
Through the land like a silver harp.
A wind of ancient romance blows across the field,
A sweet disturbance thrills the air;
The silken skirts of Spring go rustling by,
And the earth is astir with joy.
Up the hill, romping and shaking their golden heads,
Come the little children of the wood.
From ecstasy to ecstasy the year mounts upward.
Up from the south come the odor-laden winds,
Angels and ministers of life,
Dropping seeds of fruitfulness
Into the bosoms of flowers.
Elusive, alluring secrets hide in wood and hedge
Like the first thoughts of love
In the breast of a maiden;
The witchery of love is in rock and tree.
Across the pasture, star-sown with daisies,
I see a young girl—the spirit of spring she seems,
Sister of the winds that run through the rippling daisies.
Sweet and clear her voice calls father and brother,
And one whose name her shy lips will not utter.
But a chorus of leaves and grasses speaks her heart
And tells his name: the birches flutter by the wall;
The wild cherry-tree shakes its plumy head
And whispers his name; the maple
Opens its rosy lips and murmurs his name;
The marsh-marigold sends the rumor
Down the winding stream, and the blue flag
Spread the gossip to the lilies in the lake:
All Nature's eyes and tongues conspire
In the unfolding of the tale
That Adam and Eve beneath the blossoming rose-tree
Told each other in the Garden of Eden.
Once more the wind blows from the walls,
And I behold a fair young mother;
She stands at the lilac-shaded door
With her baby at her breast;
She looks across the twilit fields and smiles
And whispers to her child: "Thy father comes!"

Life triumphed over many-weaponed Death.
Sorrow and toil and the wilderness thwarted their stout invasion;
But with the ship that sailed again went no retreating soul!
Stubborn, unvanquished, clinging to the skirts of Hope,
They kept their narrow foothold on the land,
And the ship sailed home for more.
With yearlong striving they fought their way into the forest;
Their axes echoed where I sit, a score of miles from the sea.
Slowly, slowly the wilderness yielded
To smiling grass-plots and clearings of yellow corn;
And while the logs of their cabins were still moist
With odorous sap, they set upon the hill
The shrine of liberty for man's mind,
And by it the shrine of liberty for man's soul,
The school-house and the church.