There is a Glory

by Eric Martin

There is a glory I have found
In lying on the cool, damp ground
Beneath a tombstone's evening shade,
Beneath a willow's weeping boughs.
How like a moonlit woodland glade
This churchyard seems, where I would rouse
From slumberous death a lofty thought
With which my mind had long been fraught.
Oh, silent beauty, on the breast
Of sacred earth in this dim glade!
Oh, peaceful spot, my head to rest
Beneath this tombstone's twilight shade!

When I behold the yellow leaves
Which tell of autumn's coming dawn,
My eyes are to their splendor drawn,
Although my heart for summer grieves.
So also have I learned to find
Much beauty in the grim disguise
Of death and dying hopes — a kind
Of rapture in the harshest eyes
Of failure, or forlorn surprise.
Thus I've attuned my soul to sense
The curious thrill of tragedy,
Having belied the inference
That sorrow must be misery.

© 2008 by Eric Martin

 

 

 


 


About the Author

Eric Martin's poems and translations have appeared in nearly fifty print and online journals throughout the United States, Canada and Great Britain, including The Barefoot Muse, Calenture, Centrifugal Eye, Contemporary Rhyme, Lucid Rhythms, The Road Not Taken, Trellis Magazine, and forthcoming (May 2008) in the Concelebratory Shoehorn Review. A complimentary copy of his chapbook, The Death of Orpheus, and Other Poems, Original and Translated, can be requested at: emart40x@yahoo.com

 

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