| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922. |
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| Lonely Burial |
| | | Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) |
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| THERE were not many at that lonely place, | |
| Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. | |
| The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. | |
| Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race | |
| Unseen by any. Toward the further woods | 5 |
| A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased. | |
| —We were most silent in those solitudes— | |
| Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest, | |
| The clotted earth piled roughly up about | |
| The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing, | 10 |
| Short words in swordlike Latin—and a rout | |
| Of dreams most impotent, unwearying. | |
| Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse, | |
| The terrible bareness of the soul’s last house. | |
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