The Grave-Digger by John Bannister Tabb

Here underneath the sod,
Where night till now hath been,
With every lifted clod
I let the sunshine in.

How dark soe’er the gloom
Of Death’s approaching shade,
The first within the tomb
Is light, that cannot fade.

And from the deepest grave
I banish it in vain;
For, like a tidal wave,
Anon ‘twill come again.

To The Dead in the Graveyard Underneath My Window by Adelaide Crapsey

 

How can you lie so still? All day I watch

And never a blade of all the green sod moves

To show where restlessly you toss and turn,

And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees

Stiffened and aching from their long disuse;

I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth

To take its freedom of the midnight hour.

Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones?

The very worms must scorn you where you lie,

A pallid mouldering acquiescent folk,

Meek habitants of unresented graves.

Why are you there in your straight row on row

Where I must ever see you from my bed

That in your mere dumb presence iterate

The text so weary in my ears: “Lie still

And rest; be patient and lie still and rest.”

I’ll not be patient! I will not lie still!

There is a brown road runs between the pines,

And further on the purple woodlands lie,

And still beyond blue mountains lift and loom;

And I would walk the road and I would be

Deep in the wooded shade and I would reach

The windy mountain tops that touch the clouds.

My eyes may follow but my feet are held.

Recumbent as you others must I too

Submit? Be mimic of your movelessness

With pillow and counterpane for stone and sod?

And if the many sayings of the wise

Teach of submission I will not submit

But with a spirit all unreconciled

Flash an unquenched defiance to the stars.

Better it is to walk, to run, to dance,

Better it is to laugh and leap and sing,

To know the open skies of dawn and night,

To move untrammeled down the flaming noon,

And I will clamour it through weary days

Keeping the edge of deprivation sharp,

Nor with the pliant speaking on my lips

Of resignation, sister to defeat.

I’ll not be patient. I will not lie still.
And in ironic quietude who is

The despot of our days and lord of dust

Needs but, scarce heeding, wait to drop

Grim casual comment on rebellion’s end;

“Yes, yes . . Wilful and petulant but now

As dead and quiet as the others are.”

And this each body and ghost of you hath heard

That in your graves do therefore lie so still.

Moonlight Churchyard by David Macbeth Moir

 

To die and go we know not whither,

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot.

-Shakespeare

Round thee, pure Moon, a ring of snowy clouds
Hover, like children round their mother dear
In silence and in joy, for ever near
The footsteps of her love. Within their shrouds,
Lonely, the slumbering dead encompass me!
Thy silver beams the mouldering abbey flout;
Black rails, memorial stones, are strew’d about;
And the leaves rustle on the holly tree.
Shadows mark out the undulating graves;
Tranquilly, tranquilly the departed lie!—
Time is an ocean, and mankind the waves
That reach the dim shores of Eternity;
Death strikes; and Silence, ‘mid the evening gloom,
Sits spectre-like, the guardian of the tomb!

The Stranger by Walter De la Mare

Half-hidden in a graveyard,
In the blackness of a yew,
Where never living creature stirs,
Nor sunbeam pierces through,

Is a tombstone green and crooked,
Its faded legend gone,
And but one rain-worn cherub’s head
To sing of the unknown.

There, when the dusk is falling,
Silence broods so deep
It seems that every wind that breathes
Blows from the fields of sleep.

Day breaks in heedless beauty,
Kindling each drop of dew,
But unforsaking shadow dwells
Beneath this lonely yew.

And, all else lost and faded,
Only this listening head
Keeps with a strange unanswering smile
Its secret with the dead.

Sonnet Written in the Churchyard at Middleton in Sussex by Charlotte Smith

 

Pressed by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides,

While the loud equinox its power combines,

The sea no more its swelling surge confines,

But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides.

The wild blast, rising from the western cave,

Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed;

Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead,

And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!

With shells and sea-weed mingled, on the shore,

Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave;

But vain to them the winds and waters rave;

They hear the warring elements no more:

While I am doomed, by life’s long storm oppressed,

To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.

October Graveyard by Caroline Crosby Wilson

Here, where the decorous corpses lay,
With decent labels at the head,
Monotonous in green array,
A flaming mutiny has spread.
Where proper mourners knelt to pray
The dying dance upon the dead.

Yet the misshapen moon shall white
The scarlet to a silver shift,
And the late traveller’s throat grew tight
To see pale, tortured vapors lift,
And hear vague rustlings in the night,
Where ashen leaves descend and drift.

The Ballad of the White Glow by Itzik Manger

 

“You’ve grieved enough, my daughter dear,

You’ve mourned enough, your woe.”

“Mother, see, in the depth of night—

A cool, white glow.”
“It’s a will-o’-the-wisp, my daughter,

A will-o’-the-wisp, be sure.

May it always wander the empty fields

And come here nevermore.”
“It cannot be a will-o’-the-wisp,

It may not be false fire,

Because my heart, in that cool glow,

Is throbbing with desire.”
“Say your prayer, my daughter.

I cannot understand—”

“Mother, the white glow calling me

Calls from the beyond.

What shall I say to my urgent heart?

Shall I refuse to go?

If it is my heart calling,

Shall I answer, “No?”
The storm is blowing out of doors,

Outside there whirls the snow.

“Wait one moment more, white light.

One moment and I’ll go.”
Quickly, quickly, she takes up

Her little crimson shawl.

Her own blood is a brighter red—

The look of death is pale.
Long, long at the windowpane

Her mother sees her go,

Until the virgin silhouette

Fades in the pallid glow.

A Dream by William Allingham

I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;
I went to the window to see the sight;
All the Dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.

On they pass’d, and on they pass’d;
Townsfellows all, from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
Quench’d in the heavy shadow again.

Schoolmates, marching as when they play’d
At soldiers once – but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown’d, I knew, in the awful sea.

Straight and handsome folk, bent and weak, too;
Some that I loved, and gasp’d to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
Some that I had not known were dead.

A long, long crowd – where each seem’d lonely,
Yet of them all there was one, one only,
Raised a head or look’d my way;
She linger’d a moment – she might not stay.

How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah! Mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!

On, on, a moving bridge they made
Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;
Many long-forgot, but remembered then,

And first there came a bitter laughter;
A sound of tears a moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That eve morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.

A Frosty Night by Robert Graves

“Alice, dear, what ails you,
Dazed and lost and shaken?
Has the chill night numbed you?
Is it fright you have taken?”

“Mother, I am very well,
I was never better.
Mother, do not hold me so,
Let me write my letter.”

“Sweet, my dear, what ails you?”
“No, but I am well.
The night was cold and frosty –
There’s no more to tell.”

“Ay, the night was frosty,
Coldly gaped the moon,
Yet the birds seemed twittering
Through green boughs of June.

“Soft and thick the snow lay,
Stars danced in the sky –
Not all the lambs of May-day
Skip so bold and high.

“Your feet were dancing, Alice,
Seemed to dance on air,
You looked a ghost or angel
In the star-light there.

“Your eyes were frosted star-light;
Your heart, fire and snow.
Who was it said, ‘I love you’?”
“Mother, let me go!”

The Shadow by Madison Julius Cawein

I
Mother, mother, what is that gazing through the darkness?
What is that that looks at me with its awful eyes?
Tell me, mother, what it is, freezing me to starkness?
Through the house it seems to go with its icy sighs,
What is that, oh, what is that, mother, in the darkness?

II
Child, my child! my little child! ‘tis a waving willow,
That the night wind bows and sways near the window-pane:
Here’s my breast, my little son. Let it be your pillow.
Have no fear, love, in my arms. Go to sleep again.
Go to sleep and turn your face from the windy willow.

III
Mother, mother, what is that? going round and round there?
Round the house and at the door stops and turns the knob.
Hold me close, O mother love! keep me from that sound there!
Hear it how it’s knocking now? Don’t you hear it sob?
Guard me from the ghostly thing that goes round and round there.

IV
Child, my child! my little child! ’tis the wind that wanders:
‘Tis the wandering wind that knocks, crying at the door.
Hark no more and heed no more what the night wind maunders.
Rest your head on mother’s heart, list its faery lore.
Go to sleep and have no fear of the wind that wanders.

V
Mother, mother, look and see! what is that that stands there?
With its lantern face and limbs, mantled all in black!
Gaunt and grim and horrible with its knuckled hands there!
Now before me! now beside me! now behind my back!
Mother! mother! face it now! ask it why it stands there!

VI
Child, my child! my little child! ’tis a shadow only!
Shadow of the lamp-shade here near your little bed!
No! it will not come again when the night lies lonely.
Sleep, oh, sleep, my little son. See! the thing is fled.
Mother will not leave her boy with that shadow only….

VII
Will he live? or will he die? Answer; fearful Shadow!
O thou Death who hoverest near, hold thy hands away!
Oh, that night were past and light lay on hill and meadow!
Does he sleep? or is he dead? God! that it were day!
Light to help my love to fight with that crouching shadow!