Sonnets. The Burial of the Poet

Richard Henry Dana

IN the old churchyard of his native town,

And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall,

We laid him in the sleep that comes to all,

And left him to his rest and his renown.

The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down

White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall;—

The dead around him seemed to wake, and call

His name, as worthy of so white a crown.

And now the moon is shining on the scene,

And the broad sheet of snow is written o’er

With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,

As once the winding-sheet of Saladin

With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more

Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.