Yet, whereso'er she turns the ground,
My kindred earth I see:
Once every atom of this mound
Lived, breathed, and felt, like me.

Through all this hillock's crumbling mould
Once the warm lifeblood ran:
Here thine original behold,
And here thy ruins, man!

By wafting winds and flooding rains,
From ocean, earth, and sky,
Collected here, the frail remains
Of slumbering millions lie.

The towers and temples crushed by time,
Stupendous wrecks, appear
To me less mournfully sublime
Than this poor molehill here.

Methinks this dust yet heaves with breath--
Ten thousand pulses beat;--
Tell me, in this small hill of death,
How many mortals meet!

One idea, you see, beaten out rather thin, and expressed in a great
many words, as was the good man's wont. And in these days of the
misty and spasmodic school, I owe my readers an apology for presenting
them with poetry which they will have no difficulty in understanding.