John Sterling

The Childless Sexton

Upon the spring-clad fields and woods,
The churchyard graves and tall church-tower,
The warm, pure daylight softly broods,
And fills with life the morning hour.

The vast sepulchral yew-tree waves,
And feels the sunshine cheer the shade,
And e'en the low and grassy graves
Appear in living slumber laid.

The only sad and helpless thing,
That May-day makes not less forlorn,
Is that old man, to whom the spring
Is dead, and dead the breezy morn.

These live not now, for all is dead
With her that lies below the sod;
His daughter from his life is fled,
And leaves but dust by spectres trod.

The smooth, sweet air is blowing round,
It is a spirit of hope to all:
It whispers o'er the wakening ground,
And countless daisies hear the call.

It mounts and sings away to heaven,
And 'mid each light and lovely cloud;
To it the lark's loud joys are given,
And young leaves answer it aloud.

It skims above the flat green meadow,
And dark'ning sweeps the shining stream;
Along the hill it drives the shadow,
And sports and warms in the skyey beam.

But round that hoar and haggard man
It cannot shed a glimpse of gladness;
He wastes beneath a separate ban,
An exile to a world of gladness.

Upon a bench before his door
He sits, with weak and staring eyes.
He sits and looks, for straight before,
The grave that holds his daughter, lies.

If any come with him to speak,
In dull harsh words he bids them go;
For this strong earth he seems too weak,
For breathing life too cramp and slow:

A sun-dial pillar left alone,
On which no dial meets the eye;
A black mill-wheel with grass o'ergrown,
That hears no water trickle by:

Dark palsied mass of sever'd rock,
Deaf, blind, and sear to sun and rain;
A shatter'd grave-stone's time-worn block
That only shews the name of — Jane.