They built his mound of the rough, red ground, <br />By the dip of a desert dell, <br />Where all things sweet are killed by the heat, <br />And scattered o'er flat and fell; <br />In a burning zone they left him alone, <br />Past the uttermost western plain, <br />And the nightfall dim heard his funeral hymn <br />In the voices of wind and rain. <br /> <br />The songs austere of the forests drear, <br />And the echoes of clift and cave, <br />When the dark is keen where the storm hath been, <br />Fleet over the far-away grave. <br />And through the days when the torrid rays <br />Strike down on a coppery gloom, <br />Some spirit grieves in the perished leaves, <br />Whose theme is that desolate tomb. <br /> <br />No human foot or paw of brute <br />Halts now where the stranger sleeps; <br />But cloud and star his fellows are, <br />And the rain that sobs and weeps. <br />The dingo yells by the far iron fells, <br />The plover is loud in the range, <br />But they never come near to the slumberer here, <br />Whose rest is a rest without change. <br /> <br />Ah! in his life, had he mother or wife, <br />To wait for his step on the floor? <br />Did beauty wax dim while watching for him <br />Who passed through the threshold no more? <br />Doth it trouble his head? He is one with the dead; <br />He lies by the alien streams; <br />And sweeter than sleep is death that is deep <br />And unvexed by the lordship of dreams.<br /><br />Henry Kendall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-euroma/
