News from The Cartersville Express

 
The Cartersville Express
Cartersville, Georgia
March 11, 1875, Page 3
 
Transcribed by:  
 

For the Standard and Express.

“GOD’S ACRE.”
I’VE NOTHING HERE!

I wandered through “God’s Acre,”
Where the dead so thickly lie,
The shivering thought came o’er me,
“I would not like to die!”

The “Blessed lay in calm repose
The vile and sinner close beside,
“The Bud that ne’er could be a Flower!”
The maiden in her youthful pride!

Engraven on the marble white
The birth and virtues of the dead,
But, oh, beside the nameless graves,
I bent my form, and bowed my head.

Why should I weep! – in all this sight
I nothing have to call my own!
Nothing to place one flower upon
Nothing to grieve o’er—naught to mourn.

Ah, never so! –“God’s Acre” vast
Encompasses our land and sea,
And one sad church-yard far away,
Holds all that once was dear to me.

And as I walk amid these graves,
A long one here—a short one there—
Memory brings up my treasured ones
And the bright smiles they used to wear.

I’ve nothing here! –but, oh, my God!
Three graves—are ever in my heart—
I feel their shadows on my soul,
Of me, they have become a part.

And if beside your sod I kneel,
And bow my heart, and bend my head;
It is, because in other climes,
I too, have hallowed precious dead.

Then when I cast a tiny flower
Or bit of green on some lone grave
‘So do to mine’ in yon far land—
Is all the benison I crave.—

Cartersville Cemetery, Feb. 27, 1875.

 

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