Out from the city's giant roar,
You wandered through the open door;
Paused at a little pail and spade
Across a tiny hillock laid;
Then noted on your dexter side
Some moneyed mourner's "love or pride;"
And so, beyond a hawthorn-tree,
Showering its rain of rosy bloom
Alike on low and lofty tomb,
You came upon it - suddenly.
How strange! The very grasses' growth
Around it seemed forlorn and loath;
The very ivy seemed to turn
Askance that wreathed the neighbor urn.
Sunk was the slab; the head declined,
And left the rails a wreck behind.
No name; you traced a "6," a "7,"
Part of "affliction" and of "Heaven;"
And then, - O Irony austere! -
You read in letters sharp and clear,
"Though lost to sight, to memory dear."