THE PILGRIM FUNERAL. It was a wintry scene, The hills were whiten'd o'er, And the chill north winds were blowing keen Gone was the wood-bird's lay That the summer forest fills; And the voice of the stream had pass'd away And the low sun coldly smiled Through the boughs of the ancient wood, Where a hundred souls-son, sire, wife, and child— Around a coffin stood. They raised it gently up, And, through the untrodden snow, They bore it away, with a solemn step, To a woody vale below; And grief was in each eye As they moved towards the spot; And brief low speech, and tear and sigh, Told that a friend was not. THE PILGRIM FUNERAL. When they laid his cold corpse low Heavy the mingled earth and snow Weeping, they passed away, And left him there alone, With no mark to tell where their dead friend lay, But the mossy forest stone. When the winter storms were gone, And o'er him giant trees Their proud arms toss'd on high, And rustled music in the breeze When these were overspread With the leaves that autumn gave, They bow'd them in the wind, and shed These woods are perished now, And that humble grave forgot, And the yeoman sings as he draws his plough O'er that once sacred spot. 4.5 46 THE PILGRIM FUNERAL. Two centuries are flown Since they laid his cold corpse low, And his bones are mouldered to dust, and strewn And they who laid him there— That sad and suffering trainNow sleep in dust, to tell us where No lettered stones remain, Their memory remains ; And ever shall remain, More lasting than the aged fanes Of Egypt's storied plain. JOHN H. BRYANT. BURIAL HILL AT PLYMOUTH.* THE Pilgrim Fathers-where are they? The mists that wrapped the pilgrims' sleep And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep, But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale As an angel's wing, through an opening cloud, * COLE'S HILL, where the Pilgrims who died in the first winter were buried. Their graves were smoothed, lest the Indians should learn the great extent of mortality which prevailed. No traces now remain of these graves. |