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 oblivion's 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, and the myrtle grows; / Wild morning-glories, pale as pain, / With holy urns, that hint at woes, / The night hath filled with rain.
/ Here are the largest berries 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 night, for its forgotten dead, / A requiem, of no known wind said, / Through ghostly cedars moans and throbs, / While to the starlight overhead / The shivering screech-owl sobs.