Our Teachers

Say'st thou the dead are teachers?Must we come,And sit among the clods, and lay our earTo the damp crannies of the loathsome tomb,And listen for their lore?There comes no soundFrom all those stern and stone-bound sepulchres.Grassblades are there, and flowers, and now and thenA mother-bird doth cheer her callow youngWith chirping strain; while the low winds that sweepThe shivering harp-strings of yon ancient pinesMake sullen undulation.Still thou say'stThe silent dead are teachers.Stretch your hands,And on our tablets write one pencil-trace,That we may hoard it in our heart of hearts.All motionless! All passionless! All mute!O silence! twin with wisdom! I would pressMy lip upon yon cradled infant's grave,And drink the murmur of its smitten bloom.A mother's young pride in her beautiful,Her darling ministries from eve to morn,

Laid low! Laid low! How slight the aspen stemRound which her heart's joys twined. Yet all are frail,All like the crisp stalk in the reaper's path.

—Read I thy lesson right, my little one?See, by thy side, the strong man sleepeth well.The tall, proud man, who tower'd, like Israel's king,With head above the people. Yet his wail,Was it not weak as thine when death launch'd homeThe fatal dart? Humility befitsThe born of earth, the crush'd before the moth;And the deep teaching of such lowly creedBest cometh from the dead.Ah! let me kneelHere on this mound, where sleeps my early friend,And wait her words in lowliness of soul.Thou speak'st not to me! thou whose silver toneDid lead the way, in all our sweet discourse,When, lost in lonely haunts, we wander'd long,Shunning the crowd. Twin-soul thou wert with mine.Yet still I think I loved thee not enoughWhen thou wert with me.Thy clear, welcome voice,Thy soft caress at meeting, it would seemThat sometimes clouds around my spirit hung,Checking the fond response. Beloved one,Was it not so? And there were tender wordsI might have said to thee, and said them not.And there were higher flights of glorious thought,And nobler trophies on life's rugged steep,To which I might have urged thee. Was it so?Make answer from thy pillow. Blind and weak!

I thought to have thee ever by my side.And so the hours swept by, till thou didst spreadA sudden wing, and prove thine angel-birth.

O, by the keen regret of those lost hours,Pure spirit! teach me with firm grasp to seizeThe passing moment, not with duty's deed,Or the defrauded sympathies of love,To load the uncertain future; but with prayerPropitiate Him who metes our fleeting days,And teacheth wisdom from the voiceless tomb.