Under The Pines

“TELL THEM TO BURY ME UNDER THE PINES AT HOME.” FROM “SEA GIFT.”

I would not rest in the moldering tomb Of the grim church-yard, where the ivy twines, But make me a grave in the forest’s gloom, Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume, Each dark-green bough of the dear old pines;

Where the lights and shadows softly merge, And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines; Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge, From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirge For the dead beneath the sighing pines.

When the winter’s icy fingers sow The mound with jewels till it shines, And cowled in hoods of glistening snow, Like white-veiled sisters bending low, Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.

While others fought for cities proud, For fertile plains and wealth of mines, I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud, I bared my breast, and took my shroud For the land where wave the grand old pines.

Though comrades sigh and loved ones weep For the form shot down in the battle lines, In my grave of blood I gladly sleep, If the life I gave will help to keep The Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.

* * * * *

The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod, His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines; And, bowing ’neath the chastening rod, We lift our hearts and hands to God, And cry: “Oh! save our Land of Pines!”