When I Am Dead - An 1852 Poem
By M.E.M.
- When I am dead, when I am dead!
- Oh lay me not in a marble tomb;
- But lay me low, 'neath the valley shade,
- Where the flowers of Spring shall bloom.
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- When I am dead, when I am dead!
- Oh! her me not from my happy home;
- But there, oh! there, let me be laid,
- Where loved ones often roam.
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- Lay me beneath the waving trees;
- Gently shall the wind sigh o'er my head,
- There softly shall the evening breeze,
- Sweep o'er my lovely bed.
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- There the birds shalt sweetly sing
- Amid the trees and fragrant flowers;
- They'll plight their love and build their homes
- Within those wildwood bowers.
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- There soft shall fall the evening dews,
- The stars of night shall sweetly shine;
- And the gentle beams of the silver moon
- Shall light that lowly bed of mine.
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- There soft shall fall the Summer showers,
- And loud the thunder shower shall roar;
- But falling showers, nor roaring storms,
- Can wake my sleeping dust no more.
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- I'll sleep until the trumpet's sound
- Shall bid the saints of glory rise,
- Then may I leave this lowly ground,
- And find a home above the skies.
October 27, 1852. Edgefield Advertiser 17(41): 1.