Littell's Living Age/Volume 128/Issue 1654/The Forgotten Grave

Out from the city's giant roar,
You wandered through the open door;
Paused at a little pail and spade
Across a tiny hillock laid;
Then noted on your dexter side
Some moneyed mourner's "love or pride;"
And so, beyond a hawthorn-tree,
Showering its rain of rosy bloom
Alike on low and lofty tomb,
You came upon it - suddenly.

How strange! The very grasses' growth
Around it seemed forlorn and loath;
The very ivy seemed to turn
Askance that wreathed the neighbor urn.
Sunk was the slab; the head declined,
And left the rails a wreck behind.
No name; you traced a "6," a "7,"
Part of "affliction" and of "Heaven;"
And then, - O Irony austere! -
You read in letters sharp and clear,
"Thogh lost to sight, to memory dear."

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923. The author died in 1929, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.