The Mountain Chapel

CHAPEL and gravestones, old and few, Are shrouded by a mountain fold From sound and view Of life. The loss of the brook's voice Falls like a shadow. All they hear is The eternal noise Of wind whistling in grass more shrill Than aught as human as a sword, And saying still: "'Tis but a moment since man's birth And in another moment more Man lies in earth For ever; but I am the same Now, and shall be, even as I was Before he came; Till there is nothing I shall be." Yet there the sun shines after noon So cheerfully The place almost seems peopled, nor Lacks cottage chimney, cottage hearth: It is not more In size than is a cottage, less Than any other empty home In homeliness. It has a garden of wild flowers And finest grass and gravestones warm In sunshine hours The year through. Men behind the glass Stand once a week, singing, and drown The whistling grass Their ponies munch. And yet somewhere, Near or far off, there's a man could Be happy here, Or one of the gods perhaps, were they Not of inhuman stature dire, As poets say Who have not seen them clearly; if At sound of any wind of the world In grass-blades stiff They would not startle and shudder cold Under the sun. When gods were young This wind was old.