C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
June
By William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
I
And the green mountains round;
And thought that when I came to lie
At rest within the ground,
’Twere pleasant that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton’s hand, my grave to make,
The rich green mountain turf should break.
A coffin borne through sleet,
And icy clods above it rolled,
While fierce the tempests beat—
Away! I will not think of these:
Blue be the sky and soft the breeze,
Earth green beneath the feet,
And be the damp mold gently pressed
Into my narrow place of rest.
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by;
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife bee and humming-bird.
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothèd lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?
I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.
The season’s glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me,
Nor its wild music flow;
But if, around my place of sleep.
The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom,
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
The thought of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;
Whose part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills
Is—that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice.