Court and Lady’s Magazine/Volume 3/February 1839/Churchyard Contemplations
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CHURCHYARD CONTEMPLATIONS.—No. IV.
THE CHURCHYARD DIAL.
BY G. R. CARTER.
“The dial-stone aged and green.”
Lone tenant of this mournful spot!
Thou mark’st the changes of the hour;
And seem’st to breathe o’er things forgot
The unbidden record of thy power.
Sweet sister of the silent gloom,
That lingers in the fretted aisle,
The mouldering wall and nameless tomb
Appear to woo thy quiet smile.
Thou mark’st the changes of the hour;
And seem’st to breathe o’er things forgot
The unbidden record of thy power.
Sweet sister of the silent gloom,
That lingers in the fretted aisle,
The mouldering wall and nameless tomb
Appear to woo thy quiet smile.
But at thy feet, the starlike flowers,
That gem the verdant robe of Spring,
Alike in sunbeams and in showers,
Their ever-teeming fragrance fling.
The sapphire eye of yonder heaven
Is beaming on thine ancient stone;
But other eyes, at midnight driven,
Come here to watch and weep alone.
That gem the verdant robe of Spring,
Alike in sunbeams and in showers,
Their ever-teeming fragrance fling.
The sapphire eye of yonder heaven
Is beaming on thine ancient stone;
But other eyes, at midnight driven,
Come here to watch and weep alone.
The lover looks, with heaving breast,
Upon the shadow as it steals
Along the margin of thy crest
And Time’s departing hand reveals;
He traces in the fleeting hour
The life of her who bloom’d for him,
Ere Death, with unrelenting power,
Around her threw his shadows dim.
Upon the shadow as it steals
Along the margin of thy crest
And Time’s departing hand reveals;
He traces in the fleeting hour
The life of her who bloom’d for him,
Ere Death, with unrelenting power,
Around her threw his shadows dim.
The mother wastes her lonely hours,
While sunset lingers on thy face,—
The palest of the weeping flowers
That veil her infant’s resting-place;
The child, entranced beside thy feet,
Beholds the turf profusely spread,
O’er all on earth he deem’d most sweet,—
A mother number’d with the dead!
While sunset lingers on thy face,—
The palest of the weeping flowers
That veil her infant’s resting-place;
The child, entranced beside thy feet,
Beholds the turf profusely spread,
O’er all on earth he deem’d most sweet,—
A mother number’d with the dead!
Memento of the passing hour!
Still may thy hoary brow proclaim
The perishable boast of power—
The visionary hopes of fame!
And slowly as thy changing shade
May Time’s dark current onward flow,
Through many a chequer’d scene convey’d
Of human bliss and human woe.
Still may thy hoary brow proclaim
The perishable boast of power—
The visionary hopes of fame!
And slowly as thy changing shade
May Time’s dark current onward flow,
Through many a chequer’d scene convey’d
Of human bliss and human woe.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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