The Mountain Tomb
The Mountain Tomb - meaning Summary
Mourning as Ritual Celebration
The poem addresses the death of a revered figure called Father Rosicross. Speakers alternate between urging noisy celebration—wine, dancing, music, roses—and registering persistent grief: the mountain cataract, a lone taper, and the closed, wise eyes in a tomb. This tension frames mourning as both ceremonial excess and futile sorrow, suggesting that ritual cannot fully answer the permanence of death or recover the wisdom embodied in the departed leader.
Read Complete AnalysesPour wine and dance if manhood still have pride, Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom; The cataract smokes upon the mountain side, Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet That there be no foot silent in the room Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet; Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. In vain, in pain; the cataract still cries; The everlasting taper lights the gloom; All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes, Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.