The Burial of the Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the old churchyard of his native town,
       &nbsp And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall,
       &nbsp We laid him in the sleep that comes to all,
       &nbsp And left him to his rest and his renown.
The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down
       &nbsp White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall;—
       &nbsp The dead around him seemed to wake, and call
       &nbsp His name, as worthy of so white a crown.
And now the moon is shining on the scene,
       &nbsp And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er
       &nbsp With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,
As once the winding-sheet of Saladin
       &nbsp With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more
       &nbsp Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.