What though no sculptur’d monuments around,

With epitaphs engraven, meet me here,

Yet conscious feeling owns, with awe profound,

The habitation of the dead is near:

With reverend feeling, not with childish fear,

I tread the ground which they, when living, trod,

Pondering this truth, to Christians justly dear,

Whose influence lends an interest to the sod

That covers their remains:—The dead still live to God!

Is it not written in the hallow’d page

Of Revelation, God remains to be

The Lord of all, in every clime and age,

Who fear’d and serv’d him living? Did not He,

Who for our sins expir’d upon the tree,

Style him of Abram, Isaac, Jacob,— Lord!

Because they liv’d to Him? Then why should we,

(As if we could no fitter meed afford,)

Raise them memorials here?—Their dust shall be restor’d.

Could we conceive Death was indeed the close

Of our existence, Nature might demand

That, where the reliques of our friends repose,

Some record to their memory should stand,

To keep them unforgotten in the land:—

Then, then indeed, urn, tomb, or marble bust,

By sculptor's art elaborately plann’d,

Would seem a debt due to their mouldering dust,

Though time would soon efface the perishable trust.

But, hoping, and believing; yea, through Faith,

Knowing, because His word has told us so,

That Christ, our Captain, triumph’d over Death,

And is the first fruits of the dead below;—

That he has trod for man this path of woe,

Dying— to rise again!— we would not grace

Death's transitory spell with trophied show;

As if that “shadowy vale,” supplied no trace

To prove the grave is not our final dwelling-place.

The poet's page, indeed, would fain supply

A specious reason for the sculptor's art;

Telling of “holy texts that teach to die: ”

But much I doubt they seldom reach the heart

Of church-yard rovers. How should truths impart

Instruction, when engraven upon stone,

If unconfess’d before? The Christian's chart

Records the answer unto Di-ves known,

Who, for his brethren's sake, pleaded in suppliant tone.