God's Acre at Corfe Castle

I came across the concept of "God's Acre" a long time ago, in the quasi-autobiography of a Swiss writer (Gotttfried Keller) of the mid-19th century.  The delightful book is many hundreds of pages long, and is on my list of books to be finished.... one day.

Corfe Castle also has a God's Acre, in fact it has two.  I cannot find any other record of this name for a cemetery in Britain.

What I have found is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a mid-19th century American writer.


I 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 ploughshare, 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!