Yea, and believe as he did then, and kneel
On friend or father's grave, and kiss the sod
As in the presence of our father's God!
VI.
He reached the spot; he startled--trembled--wept;
And through his bosom wildest feelings swept.
He sought a nameless grave, but o'er the place
Where slept the generations of his race,
A marble pillar rose. "Oh Heaven!" he cried,
"Has avaricious Ruin's hand denied
The parents of my heart a grave with those
Of their own kindred?--have their ruthless foes
Grasped this last, sacred spot we called our own?
If but a weed upon that grave had grown,
I would have honoured it!--have called it brother!
Even for my father's sake, and thine, my mother!
But that cold marble freezes up my heart,
And seems to tell me that I have no part
With its proud dead; while through the veil of night
The name it bears yet mocks my anxious sight."
Thus cried he bitterly; then, trembling, placed
His finger on the marble, while he traced
Its letters one by one, and o'er and o'er;--
Grew blind with eagerness, and shook the more,
As with each touch, the feeling o'er him came--
The unseen letters formed his father's name!
VII.
While thus, with beating heart, pursuing still
His anxious task, slow o'er a neighbouring hill
The broad moon rose, by not a cloud concealed,
Lit up the valley, and the tomb revealed!--
His parents' tomb!--and now, with wild surprise,
He saw the column burst upon his eyes--
Fair, chaste, and beautiful; and on it read
These lines in mem'ry of his honoured dead:
"Beneath repose the virtuous and the just,
Mingled in death, affection's hallowed dust.
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