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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MY GRAVE by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

Poet Analysis

First Line: IF, WHEN I DIE, I MUST BE BURIED, LET
Last Line: AND TOO DEEP SILENCE WOULD DISTRESS ME, DEAD.
Subject(s): DEATH; GRAVES; DEAD, THE; TOMBS; TOMBSTONES;
If, when I die, I must be buried, let
No cemetery engulph me - no lone grot,
Where the great palpitating world comes not,
Save when, with heart bowed down and eyelids wet,
It pays its last sad melancholy debt
To some outjourneying pilgrim. May my lot
Be rather to lie in some much-used spot,
Where human life, with all its noise and fret,
Throbs on about me. Let the roll of wheels,
With all earth's sounds of pleasure, commerce, love,
And rush of hurrying feet surge o'er my head.
Even in my grave I shall be one who feels
Close kinship with the pulsing world above;
And too deep silence would distress me, dead.


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