What The Sexton Said

  Your dust will be upon the wind

  Within some certain years,

  Though you be sealed in lead to-day

  Amid the country's tears.

  When this idyllic churchyard

  Becomes the heart of town,

  The place to build garage or inn,

  They'll throw your tombstone down.

  Your name so dim, so long outworn,

  Your bones so near to earth,

  Your sturdy kindred dead and gone,

  How should men know your worth?

  So read upon the runic moon

  Man's epitaph, deep-writ.

  It says the world is one great grave.

  For names it cares no whit.

  It tells the folk to live in peace,

  And still, in peace, to die.

  At least, so speaks the moon to me,

  The tombstone of the sky.

Composition Date:1916?The lyrical form of this poem is abcb.13. runic: runes are old Germanic letters, hard to read,and often carved in stone.