Poems
A Gravestone
Far from the churchyard dig his grave,
On some green mound beside the wave;
To westward, sea and sky alone,
And sunsets. Put a mossy stone,
With mortal name and date, a harp
And bunch of wild flowers, carven sharp;
Then leave it free to winds that blow,
And patient mosses creeping; slow,
And wandering wings, and footsteps rare
Of human creature pausing there.
On some green mound beside the wave;
To westward, sea and sky alone,
And sunsets. Put a mossy stone,
With mortal name and date, a harp
And bunch of wild flowers, carven sharp;
Then leave it free to winds that blow,
And patient mosses creeping; slow,
And wandering wings, and footsteps rare
Of human creature pausing there.
Analysis (ai): The poem uses a single stanza of ten lines with an irregular rhyme scheme (ABABCCDEDE) and variable meter, departing from rigid Victorian forms while remaining accessible; such flexibility aligns with mid-nineteenth-century tendencies to blend song-like cadences with narrative brevity, seen also in Allingham’s lyrical ballads.
- Imagery and Setting: Natural elements—wave, wind, moss, wild flowers—dominate, positioning the grave outside institutional religion and emphasizing solitude and continuity with the landscape; this outdoor burial contrasts with the enclosed churchyard, a conventional Victorian site, signaling a quiet resistance to formal ritual.
- Attitude Toward Mortality: Death is presented not through grief or transcendence but through quiet integration into the environment; the absence of lament or salvation rhetoric distinguishes it from contemporary elegies that often invoke Christian closure or national honor.
- Relation to Author’s Oeuvre: Compared to Allingham’s folk-inspired ballads and pastoral verse, this poem is more austere and less narrative, focusing on stillness rather than action; its spare detail and emphasis on erosion and time reappear in his later nature sketches, though this piece lacks the rural character studies typical of his work.
- Historical Context: While Victorian funerary poetry frequently emphasized memorial permanence and moral legacy, this poem values abandonment and gradual disappearance, inviting natural forces to reclaim the marker—this aligns with emerging sensibilities about impermanence, though not as radically as later modernist treatments of decay.
- Contemporary Resonance: Though written before 1900, its decentering of human ritual anticipates ecological and post-human concerns, particularly the idea that memory need not rely on monumental preservation; the wandering wings and rare footsteps suggest a non-anthropocentric view of remembrance.
William Allingham (19 March 1824 – 18 November 1889) was an Irish poet, diarist and editor. He wrote several volumes of lyric verse, and his poem “The Faeries” was much anthologised. But he is better known for his posthumously published Diary, in which he records his lively encounters with Tennyson, Carlyle and other writers and artists. His wife, Helen Allingham, was a well-known artist, watercolourist and illustrator.
