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The sky above is wan and bleak;
The ground beneath is brown and bare; No living voice intrudes to break The tranquil silence there.
THE MARTYR'S GRAVE.
Another breeze among the boughs, And then another leafy shower Comes rustling down; the sadness grows More and more sad each hour.
The shadow of the drifting cloud Falls chilly on these gloomy firs, Deepening the darkness of the wood; Hardly a leaflet stirs.
Quick- twinkling thro' the leafy screen, November stray- gleams go and come; Half- hidden by the shade, is seen
The old and well- known tomb.
Here sleeps the martyr's weary head; Here softly moulders holy dust, With the wild wood- moss overspread, Resting in silent trust.
No summer flowers breathe sweetness here, It is a lone forsaken spot, Round lie the leaves of autumn sere, The leaf that changes not.
Far from man's voice of love or strife, ' Tis fit that here his grave should be, In death an outcast as in life, Unnamed in history.


