E'en now, from mountain or from plain, In France, America or Spain, A tree is soaring, oak or pine, Of which some portion shall be mine. E'en now within her chamber lone Some wrinkled and decrepit crone Weaves fair white linen, like a Fate, To clothe my body soon or late. E'en now, for me, with sunless toil. Like some blind mole beneath the soil, A swarthy miner doth explore Earth's teeming veins for iron ore. There is some corner of the earth Where nought but loveliness hath birth, Where sunbeams drink the tears of morn, There I shall sleep in days unborn. That tree which with its foliage now Doth screen a nest on every bough, The planks hereafter shall supply Wherein my coffined bones shall lie. That linen, which the wrinkled crone Is weaving in her chamber lone, Shall form a winding sheet to hold My lifeless body in its fold. That iron, burrowed from the soil By the swart miner's sunless toil, Transformed to nails, shall tightly close The chest wherein my limbs repose; And in that charming spot on earth Where nought but loveliness hath birth, A grave shall yawn, beneath whose sod My heart shall mingle with the clod. |