ROUND thee, pure Moon, a ring of snowy clouds Hover, like children round their mother dear In silence and in joy, for ever near The footsteps of her love. Within their shrouds, Lonely, the slumbering dead encompass me! Thy silver beams the mouldering abbey flout; Black rails, memorial stones, are strew'd about; And the leaves rustle on the holly tree. Shadows mark out the undulating graves; Tranquilly, tranquilly the departed lie!— Time is an ocean, and mankind the waves That reach the dim shores of Eternity; Death strikes; and Silence, 'mid the evening gloom, Sits spectre-like, the guardian of the tomb! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WIND AND THE MOON by GEORGE MACDONALD I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY by WILLIAM AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG THE EAGLE SWIFT by ADAM OF SAINT VICTOR THE DEAD DRUMMER; A LEGEND OF SALISBURY PLAIN by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 17 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT CALL OF THE OPEN by LAURA E. BRADSHAW |