The habitant was lov'd who died!
No trophied 'scutcheon marks the grave--
No blazon'd banners round it wave--
'Tis but a simple pile of stones
Rais'd o'er a hapless infant's bones;
Perchance a mother's tears have dew'd
This sepulchre, so frail and rude;--
A father mourn'd in accents wild,
His offspring lost--his only child--
Who might, in after years, have spread
A ray of honour round his head,
Nor thought, as stone on stone he threw,
His child would meet a stranger's view.

But, lo! upon its clay-cold breast,
The Arctic Robin rais'd its nest,
And rear'd its little fluttering young,
Where Death in awful quiet slept,
And fearless chirp'd, and gaily sung
Around the babe its parents wept.
It was the guardian of the grave,
And thus its chirping seem'd to say:--
"Tho' naught from Death's chill grasp could save,
Tho' naught could chase his power away--
As round this humble spot I wing,
My thrilling voice shall daily sing
A requiem o'er the faded flower,
That bloom'd and wither'd in an hour,
And prov'd life is, in every view,
Naught but a rose-bud twin'd with rue.