Frank Dempster Sherman (1860–1916)

WITHIN a spot where slept the silent dead,

I wandered once when spring had kissed the earth,

And set around its breast an emerald girth

Of grass, entangling roses white and red;

Among the leafy branches overhead

The mating robins twittered in their mirth,—

All nature seemed rejoicing in new birth

Beneath the canopy the blue skies spread:

And as I sat beside one mossy stone

Kissed by a hundred suns of summer skies,

A sudden joy came to my heart, alone

Among those graves, to think the dead shall rise

In God’s eternal spring when sounds are blown

On angels’ instruments in Paradise!