God's-acre
God's-acre - meaning Summary
Burial as Sacred Harvest
Longfellow reimagines the cemetery as "God's-Acre," a sacred field where human lives are seeds sown into the earth. The poem comforts readers with a harvest metaphor: death is the ploughing that prepares souls for a divine resurrection. The righteous will rise and bloom in an eternal garden whose flowers surpass earthly life. The tone is consoling and faith-centered, turning burial into a hopeful spiritual process.
Read Complete AnalysesI like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust. God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread of life, alas! no more their own. Into its furrows shall we all be cast, In the sure faith, that we shall rise again At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain. Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom, In the fair gardens of that second birth; And each bright blossom mingle its perfume With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth. With thy rude ploughahare, Death, turn up the sod, And spread the furrow for the seed we sow; This is the field and Acre of our God, This is the place where human harvests grow!
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