Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/69

Rh And not a chord in all my heart,

But hath a broken tone.

The chords that once so wildly rung

To mirth and melody,

Are silent now, or only strung

To mournful thoughts of thee

THE GRAVE OF L. E. L.

grave is not befitting one like thee,

Sweet but impassioned songstress of the heart;

They should have laid thee 'neath some spreading tree,

From all but wild-wood melodies apart.

They should have laid thee by some low-voiced river,

Whose waves would keep for thee a soft complain,

Murmuring with plaintive, dirge-like voice, forever

To thy calm rest a wild, pathetic strain.

The clang of armor never should have rung

Above the mouldering dust of one like thee;

Thou couldst not love the trumpet's brazen tongue,

Who didst find life such bitter mockery;

And it was mockery to lay thee there,

Beneath an Eastern pavement's burning glow,

With heavy tread of soldiers falling where

The sacred tear of memory should flow.

Was there no one whose delicate sympathy

Could choose for thee a holier place of rest,

And o'er the heart once rich with harmony,

See that the earth and the young wild-flowers prest?