I passed a graveyard in a London street,
Where 'stead of songs of birds, the hoarse sad cries
Of wretched men echoed from morn to night.
Locked were its gates, and rows of iron bars
Fenced in God's acre from tired wanderers' feet.
All broken lay the slabs which love had raised;
But on a mound where fell a patch of light,
A bindweed grew; and on its flowers, with eyes
O'erflowing with a wintry rain of tears,
A pale-faced, miserable woman gazed,
Heart-srck with longings for the nevermore,
And faint with memories of bygone years:
A breezy common with a heaven of stars,
And lovers parting at a cottage door.