Explore "The Family Burying-Ground" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ A wall of crumbling stones doth keep / Watch o'er long barrows where they sleep, / Old chronicled grave-stones of its dead, / On which oblivious mosses creep / And lichens gray as lead.
/ Warm days the lost cows as they pass / Rest here and browse the juicy grass / That springs about its sun-scorched stones; / Afar one hears their bells' deep brass / Waft melancholy tones.
/ Here the wild morning-glory goes / A-rambling as the myrtle grows, / Wild morning-glories pale as pain, / With holy urns, that hint at woes, / The night hath filled with rain.
/ Here are blackberries largest seen, / Rich, winey dark, whereon the lean / Black hornet sucks, noons sick with heat, / That bend not to the shadowed green / The heavy bearded wheat.
/ At dark, for its forgotten dead, / A requiem, of no known wind said, / Through ghostly cedars moans and throbs, / While to thin starlight overhead / The shivering screech-owl sobs.