Page:Poems Bushnell.djvu/80

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XXXIVTHE SHADOW
The village churchyard lay in the light
Of the moon that softly shed,
Down from the far mid-heaven of night,
Her silver noon on the dead.

The elm trees hung their branches down,
Heavy with night and sleep;
The lights were out in the little town
And eyes had forgot to weep.

I stood in a dream, like one upcast
On some long-remembered shore;
And there in the moonlight lay my past
And all I had wept of yore.

But alas! it was all more strangely far
Than in thought it had ever been;
And that grave seemed nearer to yonder star
Than to me, and more akin.

And alas! alas! I had lost my tears,
And my heart began to know
How relentless are the effacing years,
How soon it is long ago.

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