Chapter VI

Along the marge of these slow-gliding streams,
Our winding Concord and the wider flow
Of Charles by Cambridge, walks and dreams
A throng of poets,—tearfully they go;
For each bright river misses from its band
The keenest eye, the truest heart, the surest minstrel hand,—
They sleep each on his wooded hill above the sorrowing land.
Duly each mound with garlands we adorn
Of violet, lily, laurel, and the flowering thorn,—
Sadly above them wave
The wailing pine-trees of their native strand;
Sadly the distant billows smite the shore,
Plash in the sunlight, or at midnight roar;
All sounds of melody, all things sweet and fair,
On earth, in sea or air,
Droop and grow silent by the poet’s grave.