With meditations like these, only far too solemn for words, I wandered
through the lovely place, where, still, summer seemed to linger, as if
loth to quit the graves she beautified. With Eleanor and Henry in my
heart, I turned in the direction of the family burial-plot, wishing
that Eleanor were with me on that glorious day, that she might first
behold his grave under such gentle auspices of light, foliage and
flowers--for I knew that she contemplated a pilgrimage to this spot, as
soon as her strength would warrant the attempt.
I approached the spot by a winding path; the soft plash of a fountain
sounded through a little thicket of evergreens, and I saw the gleam of
the wide basin into which it fell; a solitary bird poured forth a
mournful flood of lamentation from some high branch not far away. It
required but little aid of fancy to hear in that "melodious madness"
the cry of some broken heart, haunting, in the form of this bird, the
place of the loved one's sleep.
There were other wanderers than myself in the cemetery; a funeral train
was coming through the gate as I passed in, and I met another within a
few steps; but in the secluded path where I now walked I was alone.
With the slow steps of one who meditates sad things, I approached
Henry's grave. Gliding away by another devious path, I saw a female
figure.
"It is some other mourner, whom I have disturbed from her vigil by some
of these tombs," I thought--"or, perchance, one who was passing further
on before reaching the goal of her grief,"--and with this I dismissed
her from my mind, having had, at the best, only an indistinct glimpse
of the woman, and the momentary flutter of her garments as she passed
beyond a group of tall shrubs and was lost to view.
The next moment I knelt by the sod which covered that young and noble
form. Do not think me extravagant in my emotions. I was not so--only
overpowered, always, by intense sympathy with the sufferers by that
calamity. I had so mused upon Eleanor's sorrow that I had, as it were,
made it mine. I bowed my head, breathing a prayer for her, then leaning
against the trunk of a tree whose leaves no longer afforded shade to
the carefully-cultivated family inclosure, my eyes fell upon the grave.
There were beautiful flowers fading upon it, which some friendly hand
had laid there within a week or two. Ten or fifteen minutes I may have
passed in reverie; then, as I arose to depart, I took up a fading bud
or two and a sprig of myrtle, placing them in my vest-pocket to give
Eleanor on my return. As I stooped to gather them, I perceived the
imprint of a child's foot, here and there, all about the grave--a tiny
imprint, in the fresh mold, as of some toddling babe whose little feet
had hardly learned to steady themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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