The New England Pilgrim's Funeral

It was a wintry scene,
The hills were whiten'd o'er,
And the chill north winds were blowing keen
Along the rocky shore.

Gone was the wood-bird's lay,
That the summer forest fills,
And the voice of the stream has pass'd away
From its path among the hills.

And the low sun coldly smiled
Through the boughs of the ancient wood,
Where a hundred souls, sire, wife, and child,
Around a coffin stood.

They raised it gently up,
And, through the untrodden snow,
They bore it away, with a solemn step,
To a woody vale below.

And grief was in each eye,
As they moved towards the spot.
And brief, low speech, and tear and sigh
Told that a friend was not.

When they laid his cold corpse low
In its dark and narrow cell,
Heavy the mingled earth and snow
Upon his coffin fell.

Weeping, they pass'd away,
And left him there alone,

With no mark to tell where their dead friend lay,
But the mossy forest-stone.

When the winter storms were gone
And the strange birds sung around,
Green grass and violets sprung upon
That spot of holy ground.

And o'er him giant trees
Their proud arms toss'd on high,
And rustled music in the breeze
That wander'd through the sky.

When these were overspread
With the hues that Autumn gave,
They bow'd them in the wind, and shed
Their leaves upon his grave.

These woods are perish'd now,
And that humble grave forgot,
And the yeoman sings, as he drives his plough
O'er that once sacred spot.

Two centuries are flown
Since they laid his cold corpse low,
And his bones are moulder'd to dust, and strown
To the breezes long ago.

And they who laid him there,
That sad and suffering train,
Now sleep in dust, — to tell us where
No letter'd stones remain.

Their memory remains,
And ever shall remain,
More lasting than the aged fanes
Of Egypt's storied plain.