Low on a plain At the foot of a high green hill Lies a square of old walls Builded to shelter the dead. There, under the crosses, the weeds, And the dust of the years, Shepherd and don Rest in quiet sleep. Blue above them bends the sky they loved; Warm the sun on 'dobe walls; And, as when they strode the plain, The bells of the flocks go tinkling by. Dust of every land that they have known Sweeps far and long across that plain, And whirls and eddies and settles Down on the sleepers under the sand. Around those walls the warm, red Earth Creeps higher year by year -- To fold at last within her all-absorbing breast Shepherd and don and wall. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OUR COUNTRY'S CALL by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT VASHTI by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER HILL BATTLE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES EPITAPH ON THOMAS CLERE, SURREY'S FAITHFUL FRIEND AND FOLLOWER by HENRY HOWARD AMORETTI: 34 by EDMUND SPENSER TWO OF A KIND by WALTER TALLMADGE ARNDT |