Reflections, Written on Visiting the Grave of a Venerated Friend

Reflections, Written on Visiting the Grave of a Venerated Friend

by Ann Plato

Deep in this grave her bones remain,
She’s sleeping on, bereft of pain,
Her tongue in silence now does sleep,
And she no more time’s call can greet.

She liv’d as all God’s saints should do,
Resign’d to death and suffering too;
She feels not pain or sin oppress,
Nor does of worldly cares possess.

White were the locks that thinly shed
Their snows around her honor’d head,
And furrows not to be effac’d
Had age amid her features trac’d.

I said, my sister, DO tread light,
Faint as the stars that gleam at night,
Nor pluck the tender leaves that wave
In sweetness over this sainted grave.

Public Domain 

Source: Ann Plato, Essays; Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry. Hartford: 1841. (Printed for the Author)