The Forgotten Grave

OUT from the City’s dust and roar,  
You wandered through the open door;  
Paused at a plaything pail and spade  
Across a tiny hillock laid;  
Then noted on your dexter side  
Some moneyed mourner’s “love or pride;”  
And so,—beyond a hawthorn-tree,  
Showering its rain of rosy bloom  
Alike on low and lofty tomb,—  
You came upon it—suddenly.
 
How strange! The very grasses’ growth  
Around it seemed forlorn and loath;  
The very ivy seemed to turn  
Askance that wreathed the neighbor urn.  
The slab had sunk; the head declined,
And left the rails a wreck behind.  
No name; you traced a “6,”—a “7,”—  
Part of “affliction” and of “Heaven;”  
And then, in letters sharp and clear,  
You read—O Irony austere!—
“Tho’ lost to Sight, to Mem’ry dear.”