Laurel Hill Cemetery

Laurel Hill Cemetery

Delightful spot! sweet resting place,

Where weary ones may lay their head;

Where Beauty lifts her rosy face

Around the tomb, and o'er the dead: -

Proclaiming that the gentle thoughts

Of love and friendship here may thrill:

That reverent memory here allots

Her flowers a place to blossom still.

Ask ye why o'er the solemn tomb,

Alone, the cypress should not wave?

And why in Nature's fairest bloom

We [ ] the silent grave?

We answer, Faith and Love have pass'd

In radient light through all the spot,

And blooming flowers round them cast,

Fit emblems of their children's lot.

Oh, if the living would but keep

Their warning words and precepts well,

How soon this place of final sleep

Would all of peace and glory tell! -

Would hang on all its noble groves

The gathered fruits of paradise:

Till heaven, with all its joys and loves,

O'er all the scene should seem to rise.

Then O'er thy hallowed soil how sweet,

To stray at will and muse alone,

Or walk with friends, and smiling meet

Around the lasting burial stone:

To stand upon thy noble height,

Amidst thine ancient forest trees,

Communing, with the stream in sight,

And with thy life restoring breeze.

There fancy how the spirit stands,

Upon the glowing points of life,

And gazes on those happy lands

Which lie beyond this world of strife;

And then exult, in joyous hope,

Of that bright morning which shall break

On every mountain height and slope,

When all the dead in Christ shall wake.

Then in a brighter land of rest

The holy men of earth shall roam,

And on a fairer hill be blest,

And find an everlasting home -

Where neither fading flower of leaf

The bowers of life shall 'eer deform -

Where joy shall never change to grief,

Nor zephyrs die before the storm.

O that thine aspect, soft, serene,

With all its whispered lessons, may

Be in my heart and actions seen,

Where'er my pilgrim feet may stray.

Thy calm and gentle loveliness,

Thine admonitions true and deep -

These would my spirit ever bless,

And long in grateful memory keep.

So may each vision of the tomb

Be like the quickening touch of God,

To save me from the sinner's doom,

And life me to his own abode.

And when the grave and wasting worm

Shall riot on this frame of mine,

Give me, O God, an heavenly form,

And in thine image let me shine!

N.E.J.

1:29, p. 4

1837.07.22

From the New York Evangelist