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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.