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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A MOUNTAIN GRAVE by RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: WHY FEAR TO DIE
Last Line: OF NATURE'S CHILD THE COMMON FATE.
Subject(s): GRAVES; MARRIAGE; MOURNING; TOMBS; TOMBSTONES; WEDDINGS; HUSBANDS; WIVES; BEREAVEMENT;
Why fear to die
And let thy body lie
Under the flowers of June
Thy body food
For the groundworm's brood
And thy grave smiled on by the visiting moon

Amid great Nature's halls,
Girt in by mountain walls,
And washed with waterfalls,
It would please me to die,
Where every wind that sweeps my tomb
Goes loaded with a free perfume,
Dealt out with a God's charity.

I should like to lie in sweets,
A hill's leaves for winding sheets,
And the searching sun to see
That I'm laid with decency
And the commissioned wind to sing
His mighty Psalm from fall to spring
And annual tunes commemorate
Of nature's child the common fate.



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