The Burial Of The Poet

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    RICHARD HENRY DANA

    In the old churchyard of his native town,
        And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall,
        We laid him in the sleep that comes to all,
        And left him to his rest and his renown.
    The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down
        White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall;--
        The dead around him seemed to wake, and call
        His name, as worthy of so white a crown.
    And now the moon is shining on the scene,
        And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er
        With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,
    As once the winding-sheet of Saladin
        With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more
        Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.