Poetry Archives

In the dewy depths of the graveyard
  I lie in the tangled grass,
And watch, in the sea of azure,
  The white cloud-islands pass.

The birds in the rustling branches
  Sing gayly overhead;
Gray stones like sentinel spectres
  Are guarding the silent dead.

The early flowers sleep shaded
  In the cool green noonday glooms;
The broken light falls shuddering
  On the cold white face of the tombs,

Without, the world is smiling
  In the infinite love of God,
But the sunlight fails and falters
  When it falls on the churchyard sod.

On me the joyous rapture
  Of a heart’s first love is shed,
But it falls on my heart as coldly
  As sunlight on the dead.