The Church-yard Soliloquy

Ye sepulchres, and sculptured monuments! Whose uncouth rhythmes often wake a smile Where Pity’s tear should fall,—I come to muse Upon the silent tenants you enshrine; And, lo! like peopled mists in highland glens, They live before me in their earthly shapes.— Whose is that cherub-form? Pale roseate hues Bloom on her faded cheek. Her little hands Are stretch’d toward me.—Ha! she flies—she flies!— I start entranced, as from a waking dream, And kneel upon my sister’s viewless grave. She died in infancy,—and I have wish’d That we had closed our pilgrimage together; Then had I ’scaped a world of guile and wo, And fallen, like her, upon the lap of heaven, Pure as a snowdrop on a virgin’s breast. Ah! little did I think, when late I dew’d Thy mossy dwelling with a brother’s tears, That my poor heart should feel a deeper sting; That with a father’s feelings I should weep A darling child, nipt in the bud of life, Gone, ah! too soon, to mix his dust with thine! Unnumber’d figures float, in dim review, That wear the form of images forgot, Wash’d from the mind’s eye by the flood of time Like lines upon the sand; yet I have seen These forms and faces breathe and act like me, Smile at a jest, or melt at tales of wo; Warm with the glow of hope, exult in joy; Grow pale with rank disease, and waste with sorrow; Now they have paid life’s ruthless creditor, Nor left a trace to mark their path behind. There walks the bridegroom with his pensive bride, Whom I saw church’d in yon dismantled pew, In all the dazzling glow of health and beauty, Blushing with roses.—Ah! how faded now Her nameless beauties and bewitching smiles;— No ringlets wanton on that horrid face, Those cheeks are sunk, that swell’d with sweet expression; Those eyes are dim, that beam’d like shining stars Before heaven’s gates, and tenantless their sockets; While on that breast, where Love delighted dwelt, The loathsome worm has made a gorgeous feast! Death strikes the coward swain; the warrior bold He smites amidst his bright career of honour! So Ramsay fell, the noble and the brave, When life was big with promise; here, behold! Maternal love has rear’d a monument, And the green turf becomes a hallow’d spot, When water’d by a mother’s holiest tears. And, haply, in these burial solitudes, Some wo-struck youth, at eve, may meditate, What time the moon, in pensive loveliness, Leads forth her blue-eyed sisters, and from heaven Chases the dusky Queen: Then as he mourns A brother’s loss, or weeps the death of friends, He sees that last and lonely green-arch’d cell, Where he will also find a quiet home. And does there slumber in forgotten dust, Some earlier bard, who hail’d this ancient church With heavenly melody?—Alas! such fate Awaits the framer of this lowly lay! A few short years, and nameless is the spot Where the lone thistle blossoms on his grave.