Home of the rotting and the rotten dead--
For thou art cumber'd to satiety,
And wilt be cumber'd--ay, when I am fled!
Why stand I here, the living among tombs?
Answer, all ye who own a grassy bed,
Answer your dooms.


Thou, massy stone! over whose heart art thou?
The lord who govern'd yonder giant place,
And ruled a thousand vassals at his bow.
Alack! how narrow and how small a space
Of what was human vanity and show
Serves for the maggot, when 'tis his to chase
The greatest and the latest of his race.

One of Earth's dear ones, of a noble birth,
Slumbers e'en _here_; of such supernal charms,
That but to smile was to awaken mirth,
And for that smile set loving fools in arms.
The grave ill balances such living worth,
For here the worm his richest pasture farms,
Unconscious of his harms.

Yon grassy sod, that scarcely seems a grave,
Deck'd with the daisy, and each lowly flower,
Time leaves no stone, recording of the knave,
Whether of humble, or of lordly power:
Fame says he was a bard--Fame did not save
His name beyond the living of his hour--