Chapter VI

When all is over, lay me down
Far from this dull and jaded town,
Not in a churchyard's ordered bound,
But in some wide green meadow-ground.

No stone upon me! Above all
Let no cold railing's shadows fall
Across my rest. Dead, let me be
What no one may be living--free.

Let no one mourning garments wear,
And if you love me, shed no tear;
Don't weight me with a clay-built heap,
But plant the daisies where I sleep.

There is a certain field I know,
I met my dear there, years ago;
Perhaps, if you should speak them fair,
They'd let you lay her lover there.

Laid there, perhaps my ears would hear
The ceaseless singing of the weir,
The soft wind sighing thro' the grass,
And hear the little children pass.

Or, if my ears were stopped with clay
From all sweet sounds of night and day,
I should at least (so lay me there)
Sleep better there than anywhere!

THE BETROTHAL.

There is none anywhere
So beautiful as she nor half so dear;
My heart sings ever when she draweth near,
Because she is so good and sweet and fair.

I may not be the one
To break the cloistered stillness of her life,
To teach her passion and love and grief and strife,
And lead her through the garden of the sun.

For I am sad and wise;
I have no hopes, no dreams, no fancies--none;
Yet she has taught me that I am alone,
And what men mean who talk of Paradise.

But, when her joybells ring,
I think, perhaps, that I shall hear and sigh
And wish the roses did not have to die,
And that the birds might never cease to sing.

A TRAGEDY.