<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472544" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Cambridge Churchyard</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our ancient church! its lowly tower,<br>Beneath the loftier spire,<br>Is shadowed when the sunset hour<br>Clothes the tall shaft in fire;<br>It sinks beyond the distant eye<br>Long ere the glittering vane,<br>High wheeling in the western sky,<br>Has faded o’er the plain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep<br>Their vigil on the green;<br>One seems to guard, and one to weep,<br>The dead that lie between;<br>And both roll out, so full and near,<br>Their music’s mingling waves,<br>They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear<br>Leans on the narrow graves.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The stranger parts the flaunting weeds,<br>Whose seeds the winds have strown<br>So thick, beneath the line he reads,<br>They shade the sculptured stone;<br>The child unveils his clustered brow,<br>And ponders for a while<br>The graven willow’s pendent bough,<br>Or rudest cherub’s smile.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But what to them the dirge, the knell? <br>These were the mourner’s share,—­<br>The sullen clang, whose heavy swell<br>Throbbed through the beating air;<br>The rattling cord, the rolling stone,<br>The shelving sand that slid,<br>And, far beneath, with hollow tone<br>Rung on the coffin’s lid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The slumberer’s mound grows fresh and green,<br>Then slowly disappears;<br>The mosses creep, the gray stones lean,<br>Earth hides his date and years;<br>But, long before the once-loved name<br>Is sunk or worn away,<br>No lip the silent dust may claim,<br>That pressed the breathing clay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Go where the ancient pathway guides,<br>See where our sires laid down<br>Their smiling babes, their cherished brides,<br>The patriarchs of the town;<br>Hast thou a tear for buried love? <br>A sigh for transient power? <br>All that a century left above,<br>Go, read it in an hour!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Indian’s shaft, the Briton’s ball,<br>The sabre’s thirsting edge,<br>The hot shell, shattering in its fall,<br>The bayonet’s rending wedge,—­<br>Here scattered death; yet, seek the spot,<br>No trace thine eye can see,<br>No altar,—­and they need it not<br>Who leave their children free!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look where the turbid rain-drops stand<br>In many a chiselled square;<br>The knightly crest, the shield, the brand<br>Of honored names were there;—­<br>Alas! for every tear is dried<br>Those blazoned tablets knew,<br>Save when the icy marble’s side<br>Drips with the evening dew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or gaze upon yon pillared stone,<br>The empty urn of pride;<br>There stand the Goblet and the Sun,—­<br>What need of more beside? <br>Where lives the memory of the dead,<br>Who made their tomb a toy? <br>Whose ashes press that nameless bed? <br>Go, ask the village boy!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lean o’er the slender western wall,<br>Ye ever-roaming girls;<br>The breath that bids the blossom fall<br>May lift your floating curls,<br>To sweep the simple lines that tell<br>An exile’s date and doom;<br>And sigh, for where his daughters dwell,<br>They wreathe the stranger’s tomb.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And one amid these shades was born,<br>Beneath this turf who lies,<br>Once beaming as the summer’s morn,<br>That closed her gentle eyes;<br>If sinless angels love as we,<br>Who stood thy grave beside,<br>Three seraph welcomes waited thee,<br>The daughter, sister, bride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I wandered to thy buried mound<br>When earth was hid below<br>The level of the glaring ground,<br>Choked to its gates with snow,<br>And when with summer’s flowery waves<br>The lake of verdure rolled,<br>As if a Sultan’s white-robed slaves<br>Had scattered pearls and gold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay, the soft pinions of the air,<br>That lift this trembling tone,<br>Its breath of love may almost bear<br>To kiss thy funeral stone;<br>And, now thy smiles have passed away,<br>For all the joy they gave,<br>May sweetest dews and warmest ray<br>Lie on thine early grave!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When damps beneath and storms above<br>Have bowed these fragile towers,<br>Still o’er the graves yon locust grove<br>Shall swing its Orient flowers;<br>And I would ask no mouldering bust,<br>If e’er this humble line,<br>Which breathed a sigh o’er other’s dust,<br>Might call a tear on mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Oliver+Wendell+Holmes">Oliver Wendell Holmes</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472544" data-title="The Cambridge Churchyard de Oliver Wendell Holmes" data-description="Our ancient church! its lowly tower, Beneath the loftier spire, Is shadowed when the sunset hour Clothes the tall shaft in fire; It sinks beyond the distant eye Long ere the glittering vane, High wheeling in the western sky, Has faded o’er ..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black