They are fair resting-places for the dear weary dead on their way up to heaven.

The line imagines burial places not as final destinations but as gentle, temporary “resting-places” for those exhausted by life—“the dear weary dead”—as they continue a spiritual journey “up to heaven.” Its tenderness depends on two linked ideas: death as release from weariness, and the grave as a humane pause rather than an annihilating end. The phrase also softens grief by reframing mourning into care: the living provide fair, peaceful ground for the dead’s repose. In Miller’s romantic, nature-leaning idiom, the physical landscape (a cemetery, hillside, or quiet earth) becomes a compassionate threshold between the world and the divine.