Explore "God's-Acre" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls / The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; / It consecrates each grave within its walls, / And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts / Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown / The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, / Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.
Into its furrows shall we all be cast, / In the sure faith, that we shall rise again / At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast / Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom, / In the fair gardens of that second birth; / And each bright blossom mingle its perfume / With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.
With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod, / And spread the furrow for the seed we sow; / This is the field and Acre of our God, / This is the place where human harvests grow!