Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/280

 PERE LA CHAISE. 255

She placed her chaplet, and with whispering lips, Perchance in prayer, perchance in converse low With the loved sluinberer, knelt, and strewed the

seeds

Of flowers among the mould. A shining mass Of raven tresses scaped amid the toil From their accustomed boundary ; but her eyes, None saw them, for she heeded not the tread Of passers-by. Her business was with those Who slept below. T would seem a quiet grief, And yet absorbing ; such as a young heart Might for a sister feel, ere it had learned A deeper love.

Come to yon stately dome, With arch and turret, every shapely stone Breathing the legends of the Paraclete, Where slumber Abelard and Heloise, Neath such a world of wreaths, that scarce ye see Their marble forms, recumbent, side by side. On ! on ! this populous spot hath many a fane, To win the stranger s admiration. See La Fontaine s fox-crowned cenotaph ; and his Whose &quot; Mecanique Celeste&quot; hath writ his name Among the stars ; and hers who, soaring high In silken globe, found a strange death by fire Amid the clouds.

The dead of distant lands

Are gathered here. In pomp of sculpture sleeps The Russian Demidoff; and Britain s sons Have crossed the foaming sea, to leave their dust

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