What the Sexton Said
What the Sexton Said
Original Text
Vachel Lindsay, A Handy Guide for Beggars Especially those of the Poetic Fraternity (New York: Macmillan, 1916): 159. PS 3523 I58H3 Robarts Library. Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1923): 247-48.
1Your dust will be upon the wind
2Within some certain years,
3Though you be sealed in lead to-day
4Amid the country's tears.
5When this idyllic churchyard
6Becomes the heart of town,
7The place to build garage or inn,
8They'll throw your tombstone down.
9Your name so dim, so long outworn,
10Your bones so near to earth,
11Your sturdy kindred dead and gone,
12How should men know your worth?
14Man's epitaph, deep-writ.
15It says the world is one great grave.
16For names it cares no whit.
17It tells the folk to live in peace,
18And still, in peace, to die.
19At least, so speaks the moon to me,
20The tombstone of the sky.
Notes
13] runic: runes are old Germanic letters, hard to read, and often carved in stone. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1916
Publication Notes
Forum (July 1916)
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme