On many a grave the sunset gleams,
Where calmly rest the sleeping dead--
Tired mortals, done with mortal dreams
In other life, whetted they have fled.
E'en now they live! Oh! if tonight
One soul might earthward take its flight,
In awful tones methinks t'would say--
"Prepare for death, oh child of clay!"

Oh, time-worn walls! full many a word
Ye echoed in the Sabbath calm;
Love, warning, blessing, oft ye heard,
And solemn prayer, and chanted psalm;
And funeral dirge, as wild and high'
Rose on the gale the _caione_-cry,
Borne far and wide, o'er fern and brake,
As passed the cortege o'er the lake.

And legends of the days gone by
Tell that if, when a funeral train
Passed there, dark clouds swept over the sky,
And howled the wind and sobbed the rain,
Such storm was still an omen blest,
And told the spirit's happy rest.
If all were calm--then woe the dead!
Sad rose their wailing, weird and dread!

And that before a chieftain's death,
On moonless nights, by lightning shown,