Home ⇒ 📌Vachel Lindsay ⇒ What the Sexton Said
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.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Cassius Hueffer They have chiseled on my stone the words: ‘His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.’ Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric. My epitaph should have been: ‘Life was not gentle to […]...
- Sonnet LXXXI Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten; From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die: The earth can yield me […]...
- Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten, From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die; The earth can yield me […]...
- Ring Out Your Bells Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread; For Love is dead All love is dead, infected With plague of deep disdain; Worth, as nought worth, rejected, And Faith fair scorn doth gain. From so ungrateful fancy, From such a female franzy, From them that use men thus, Good Lord, deliver us! Weep, neighbours, […]...
- On the Funeral of Charles the First The castle clock had tolled midnight: With mattock and with spade, And silent, by the torches’ light, His corse in earth we laid. The coffin bore his name, that those Of other years might know, When earth its secrets should disclose, Whose bones were laid below. “Peace to the dead” no children sung, Slow pacing […]...
- Sonnet XXXIII GReat wrong I doe, I can it not deny, To that most sacred Empresse my dear dred, Not finishing her Queene of faery, That mote enlarge her liuing prayses dead: But lodwick, this of grace to me aread: Doe ye not thinck th’accomplishment of it, Sufficient worke for one mans simple head, All were it […]...
- Sexton! My Master's sleeping here Sexton! My Master’s sleeping here. Pray lead me to his bed! I came to build the Bird’s nest, And sow the Early seed That when the snow creeps slowly From off his chamber door Daisies point the way there And the Troubadour....
- The Old Dust The living is a passing traveler; The dead, a man come home. One brief journey betwixt heaven and earth, Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages. The rabbit in the moon pounds the medicine in vain; Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood. Man dies, his white […]...
- To Plath, To Sexton So what use was poetry To a white empty house? Wolf, swan, hare, In by the fire. And when your tree Crashed through your house, What use then Was all your power? It was the use of you. It was the flower....
- Drunken Memories Of Anne Sexton The first and last time I met My ex-lover Anne Sexton was at A protest poetry reading against Some anti-constitutional war in Asia When some academic son of a bitch, To test her reputation as a drunk, Gave her a beer glass full of wine After our reading. She drank It all down while staring […]...
- The Evening-Watch: A Dialogue BODY 1 Farewell! I go to sleep; but when 2 The day-star springs, I’ll wake again. SOUL 3 Go, sleep in peace; and when thou liest 4 Unnumber’d in thy dust, when all this frame 5 Is but one dram, and what thou now descriest 6 In sev’ral parts shall want a name, 7 Then […]...
- Hymn 47 Death of kindred improved. Zech. 1:5. Must friends and kindred droop and die, And helpers be withdrawn? While sorrow with a weeping eye Counts up our comforts gone? Be thou our comfort, mighty God! Our helper and our friend; Nor leave us in this dangerous road, Till all our trials end. O may our feet […]...
- PEACEFUL GROUND Cool Morning spit on bladed grass. A Thousand silky fingers tickling toes. The strong scent of natures freshly cut hair. Mans spiritual stamping groung toward inner Peace....
- Under The Round Tower ‘Although I’d lie lapped up in linen A deal I’d sweat and little earn If I should live as live the neighbours,’ Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne; ‘Stretch bones till the daylight come On great-grandfather’s battered tomb.’ Upon a grey old battered tombstone In Glendalough beside the stream Where the O’Byrnes and Byrnes are buried, […]...
- Christmas Bells “I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till, ringing, singing […]...
- Peace on Earth He took a frayed hat from his head, And “Peace on Earth” was what he said. “A morsel out of what you’re worth, And there we have it: Peace on Earth. Not much, although a little more Than what there was on earth before I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod,- But never mind the ways […]...
- For my own Monument AS doctors give physic by way of prevention, Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care; For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention May haply be never fulfill’d by his heir. Then take Mat’s word for it, the sculptor is paid; That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye; Yet […]...
- Friendship I think awhile of Love, and while I think, Love is to me a world, Sole meat and sweetest drink, And close connecting link Tween heaven and earth. I only know it is, not how or why, My greatest happiness; However hard I try, Not if I were to die, Can I explain. I fain […]...
- Your tiger (in china it is symbolic Of darkness and the new moon) In your night’s hollow The tiger stalks Black grasses have licked It into nothingness Hooked by moon I hover on your hollow’s lip I feel the smell of fire The leap of a bright cat-fur My eye is dumb Asking to be devoured I […]...
- The Proud Farmer [In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana] Into the acres of the newborn state He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name, And, when the traders followed him, he stood Towering above their furtive souls and tame. That brow without a stain, that fearless eye Oft left the passing stranger wondering To […]...
- Among the Rocks Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth; Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. That […]...
- The Bells I Hear the sledges with the bells- Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the […]...
- Dusty Doors CHILD of the Aztec gods, How long must we listen here, How long before we go? The dust is deep on the lintels. The dust is dark on the doors. If the dreams shake our bones, what can we say or do? Since early morning we waited. Since early, early morning, child. There must be […]...
- Dogheads AMONG the grassroots In the moonlight, who comes circling, red tongues and high noses? Is one of ’em Buck and one of ’em White Fang? In the moonlight, who are they, cross-legged, telling their stories over and over? Is one of ’em Martin Eden and one of ’em Larsen the Wolf? Let an epitaph read: […]...
- The Instructor At times when under cover I ‘ave said, To keep my spirits up an’ raise a laugh, ‘Earin ‘im pass so busy over-‘ead Old Nickel-Neck, ‘oo is n’t on the Staff “There’s one above is greater than us all” Before ‘im I ‘ave seen my Colonel fall, An ‘watched ‘im write my Captain’s epitaph, So […]...
- Notice This evening, the sturdy Levi’s I wore every day for over a year & which seemed to the end In perfect condition, Suddenly tore. How or why I don’t know, But there it was: a big rip at the crotch. A month ago my friend Nick Walked off a racquetball court, Showered, Got into this […]...
- The Rose of Midnight THE moon is now an opening flower, The sky a cliff of blue. The moon is now a silver rose; Her pollen is the dew. Her pollen is the mist that swings Across her face of dreams: Her pollen is the April rain, Filling the April streams. Her pollen is eternal life, Endless ambrosial foam. […]...
- Psalm XIX: The Heavens Declare Thy Glory, Lord The heavens declare thy glory, Lord, In every star thy wisdom shines; But when our eyes behold thy word, We read thy name in fairer lines. The rolling sun, the changing light, And night and day, thy power confess; But the blest volume thou hast writ Reveals thy justice and thy grace. Sun, moon, and […]...
- The Light o' the Moon [How different people and different animals look upon the moon: showing that each creature finds in it his own mood and disposition] The Old Horse in the City The moon’s a peck of corn. It lies Heaped up for me to eat. I wish that I might climb the path And taste that supper sweet. […]...
- On The Late Indecent Liberties Taken With The Remains Of Milton “Me too, perchance, in future days, The sculptured stone shall show, With Paphian myrtle or with bays Parnassian on my brow. But I, or e’er that season come, Escaped from every care, Shall reach my refuge in the tomb, And sleep securely there.” So sang, in Roman tone and style, The youthful bard, ere long […]...
- Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell. Nay if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it, for I love you so That I […]...
- Sonnet LXXI No longer mourn for me when I am dead Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so That I […]...
- In Memory of Anyone Unknown to Me At this particular time I have no one Particular person to grieve for, though there must Be many, many unknown ones going to dust Slowly, not remembered for what they have done Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve Being impartial, unable to deceive. How they lived, or died, is quite unknown, And, […]...
- Hymn 5 Submission to afflictive providences. Job 1:21. Naked as from the earth we came, And crept to life at first, We to the earth return again, And mingle with our dust. The dear delights we here enjoy, And fondly call our own, Are but short favors borrowed now, To be repaid anon. ‘Tis God that lifts […]...
- A Sign-Seeker I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry, The day-tides many-shaped and hued; I see the nightfall shades subtrude, And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by. I view the evening bonfires of the sun On hills where morning rains have hissed; The eyeless countenance of the mist Pallidly rising when the summer droughts […]...
- Justice October, 1918 Across a world where all men grieve And grieving strive the more, The great days range like tides and leave Our dead on every shore. Heavy the load we undergo, And our own hands prepare, If we have parley with the foe, The load our sons must bear. Before we loose the word […]...
- The New Ezekiel What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried By twenty scorching centuries of wrong? Is this the House of Israel, whose pride Is as a tale that’s told, an ancient song? Are these ignoble relics all that live Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can the breath Of very heaven bid these bones revive, […]...
- The Lawyers Know Too Much THE LAWYERS, Bob, know too much. They are chums of the books of old John Marshall. They know it all, what a dead hand wrote, A stiff dead hand and its knuckles crumbling, The bones of the fingers a thin white ash. The lawyers know a dead man’s thoughts too well. In the heels of […]...
- The Poets Of The Tomb The world has had enough of bards who wish that they were dead, ‘Tis time the people passed a law to knock ’em on the head, For ‘twould be lovely if their friends could grant the rest they crave Those bards of ‘tears’ and ‘vanished hopes’, those poets of the grave. They say that life’s […]...
- I took one Draught of Life I took one Draught of Life I’ll tell you what I paid Precisely an existence The market price, they said. They weighed me, Dust by Dust They balanced Film with Film, Then handed me my Being’s worth A single Dram of Heaven!...