MISCELLANEOUS. 07 



Wishing lie may not long be doom'd to pine 

 in this low-thoughted world of darkling woe. 



Yet 'twas a silly thought — as if the body, [ 



jMouldering beneath the surface of the earth, 

 Could taste the sweets of summer scenery, j 



And feel the freshness of the balmy breeze ! i 



Yet nature speaks within the human bosom, 

 And, spite of reason, bids it look beyond i 



His narrow verge of being, and provide ! 



A decent residence for its clayey shell, | 



Endear'd to it by time. And who would lay j 



[His body in the city burial-place, 

 [To be thrown up again by some rude sexton, 

 And yield its narrow house another tenant, 

 Ere the moist flesh had mingled with the dust, 

 Ere the tenacious hair had left the scalp, 

 Exposed to insult lewd, and wantonness ? 

 No, I will lay me in the village ground ; 

 There are the dead respected. The poor hind, 

 Unlettered as he is, would scorn to invade 

 The silent resting-place of death. I've seen 

 The labourer, returning from his toil. 

 Here stay his steps, and call his children round. 

 And slowly spell the rudely sculptured rhymes. 

 And, in his rustic manner, moralize. 

 I've mark'd with what a silent awe he'd spoken, 

 AVith head uncovered, his respectful manner. 

 And all the honours which he paid the grave. 

 And thought on cities, where even cemeteries, 

 Bestrew'd with all the emblems of mortality. 

 Are not protected from the drunken insolence 

 Of wassailers profane, and wanton havoc. 

 Grant, Heaven, that here my pilgrimage may close ! 

 Yet, if this be denied, where'er my bones 

 May lie — or in the city's crowded bounds. 

 Or scatter'd wide o'er the huge sweep of waters, 

 Or left a prey on some deserted shore 

 To the rapacious cormorant, — yet still. 



