Stay, babbling river, hurrying past,
Cans't thou, who saw'st the toilers build,
Not picture on thy bosom stilled,
Life-speaking shadows long since cast?

Or, echo, mocking us with sound,
Repeat the busy voice, we pray,
Of moiling thousands, now dull clay,
And waken up the gloom profound.

Pale, shimmering ghosts that flit around,
While spade and mattock death-fields glean,
Open with words from the unseen
The mysteries now in cerements bound.

No answer yet! We gaze in vain.
With lamp and lore let science come.
Now, clear eyed maiden!!--You, too, dumb!
Your light gone out!!--'tis night again.

And is this all? an earthen pot!
A broken spear! a copper pin!
Earth's grandest prizes counted in,
A burial mound!--the common lot!

Yes! this were all; but o'er the mound,
The stars, that fill the midnight sky,
Are eyes from Heaven that watch on high
Till domesday's thrilling life-note sound.