The rain is plashing on my sill, But all the winds of Heaven are still;And so it falls with that dull sound Which thrills us in the church-yard ground, When the first spadeful drops like lead Upon the coffin of the dead.
Beyond my streaming window-pane, I cannot see the neighboring vane, Yet from its old familiar tower The bell comes, muffled, through the shower.
What strange and unsuspected link Of feeling touched, has made me think --While with a vacant soul and eye I watch that gray and stony sky --Of nameless graves on battle-plains Washed by a single winter's rains, Where, some beneath Virginian hills, And some by green Atlantic rills, Some by the waters of the West, A myriad unknown heroes rest.
Ah! not the chiefs, who, dying, see Their flags in front of victory, Or, at their life-blood's noble cost Pay for a battle nobly lost, Claim from their monumental beds The bitterest tears a nation sheds.
Beneath yon lonely mound -- the spot By all save some fond few forgot --Lie the true martyrs of the fight Which strikes for ******* and for right.
Of them, their patriot zeal and pride, The lofty faith that with them died, No grateful page shall farther tell Than that so many bravely fell;And we can only dimly guess What worlds of all this world's distress, What utter woe, despair, and dearth, Their fate has brought to many a hearth.
Just such a sky as this should weep Above them, always, where they sleep;Yet, haply, at this very hour, Their graves are like a lover's bower;And Nature's self, with eyes unwet, Oblivious of the crimson debt To which she owes her April grace, Laughs gayly o'er their burial-place.
