Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Going to Greenwood
By Henry Morford (18231881)M
Down to Greenwood’s City of Rest;—
Going down, in the summer weather,
Where slept the friends we had loved the best.
Waiting there my day of doom;—
Mary two babes that together perished
Like twin roses in their bloom.
Bright the flowers, like Heaven’s tears,
Scattered by hands we had taught to love them,
Every sunny day for years.
Some bright day,—as dear friends come
With the cheerful smile of sunny weather,—
To visit our dead in their quiet home.
For the marble overhead;
Hearing the birds sing, as if breathing
Our own love for the early dead.
Set we times for our pilgrim day;
Hindered yet by a hundred reasons,
Till the summer had passed away.
Greenwood’s walks are bleak and bare;
Nature’s beauty is sinking, failing,
Mary has gone before me there.
O’er Mary’s grave the sad winds moan:
When the skies are bright, next summer,
I shall go to Greenwood alone.