40[http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hemans/records/graves.html]

"The Graves of a Household" by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835)

Records of Woman: With Other Poems. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, & London: T. Cadell, 1828, second edition. pp. 302-304.

THEY grew in beauty, side by side,

They fill'd one home with glee;–

Their graves are sever'd, far and wide,

By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night

O'er each fair sleeping brow;

She had each folded flower in sight,–

Where are those dreamers now?

One, midst the forests of the west,

By a dark stream is laid,–

The Indian knows his place of rest,

Far in the cedar shade.

[Page 303]

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,

He lies where pearls lie deep;

He was the lov'd of all, yet none

O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are drest

Above the noble slain:

He wrapt his colours round his breast,

On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one–o'er her the myrtle showers

Its leaves, by soft winds fann'd;

She faded midst Italian flowers,–

The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who play'd

Beneath the same green tree;

Whose voices mingled as they pray'd

Around one parent knee!

[Page 304]

They that with smiles lit up the hall,

And cheer'd with song the hearth,–

Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, oh earth!