decorating the hired house. Most of the graves were surrounded with a
slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there was
hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden cross,
and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I could
perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant a shrub
on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow beside it....

After rambling leisurely about for some time, reading the iscriptions on
the various monuments which attracted my curiosity, and giving way to the
different reflections they suggested, I sat down to rest myself on a
sunken tombstone. A winding gravel-walk, overshaded by an avenue of trees,
and lined on both sides with richly sculptured monuments, had gradually
conducted me to the summit of the hill, upon whose slope the cemetery
stands. Beneath me in the distance, and dim-discovered through the misty
and smoky atmosphere of evening, rose the countless roofs and spires of
the city. Beyond, throwing his level rays athwart the dusky landscape,
sank the broad red sun. The distant murmur of the city rose upon my ear;
and the toll of the evening bell came up, mingled with the rattle of the
paved street and the confused sounds of labor. What an hour for
meditation! What a contrast between the metropolis of the living and the
metropolis of the dead!....

Before I left the graveyard the shades of evening had fallen, and the
objects around me grown dim and indistinct. As I passed the gateway, I
turned to take a parting look. I could distinguish only the chapel on the
summit of the hill, and here and there a lofty obelisk of snow-white
marble, rising from the black and heavy mass of foliage around, and
pointing upward to the gleam of the departed sun, that still lingered in
the sky, and mingled with the soft starlight of a summer evening.