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THE FUNERAL GENIUS,
AN ANTIQUE STATUE.
Thou shouldst be looked on when the starlight falls
Through the blue stillness of the summer air;
Not by the torch-fire wavering on the walls,
It hath too fitful and too wild a glare;—
And thou—thy rest, the soft, the lovely, seems
To ask light steps which will not break its dreams.
Flowers are upon thy brow, for so the dead
Were crowned of old, with pale spring-flowers like these;
Sleep on, thine eye hath sunk, yet softly shed,
As from the wing of some faint southern breeze;
And the pine-boughs o'ershadow thee with gloom
Which of the grove seems breathing—not the tomb.
