LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
203 
of enhancing* them according to the station which the deceased 
held in life—although no funeral bell sounded from a neighbour¬ 
ing church, proclaiming what is pompously called, to the world, 
which includes the circumference of quarter of a mile, that death 
has made room for another of his victims on the the earth— 
although no surpliced priest stood bare-headed on the brink of 
the grave, muttering from a book the words, which he has 
known from his infancy by heart—although the earth in which 
the corpse was to be placed, had not been consecrated by some 
lawn-sleeved mitered dignitary of the church—yet in default of 
all these supposed necessary and indispensable ceremonials, 
which accompany the interment of the individual, who dies in 
the dim and gloomy curtained chamber, not less fervent were 
the prayers; not less acceptable in the eyes of heaven were the 
rude and simple forms, which marked the interment of the sea¬ 
man of the Victory on a desolate shore, which might never 
again be visited by those, who placed him there, or by one who 
spoke the language of his father-land, and where he might sleep 
in his rugged grave, in a region of desolation and unbroken 
silence, as soundly as those, who lie mouldering in the sculp¬ 
tured mausoleum, or in a royal charnel house. 
Arranged round the grave, which was only 2| feet deep, the 
crew beheld the partner of their toils laid in his last resting 
place—no coffin enclosed his remains—no gilt escutcheon told 
his name and age, his hammock was his shroud, his pillow a 
piece of granite; the latter part of the funeral service was read, 
the grave was filled up with coarse gravel, and as the crew 
retraced their steps to the vessel, they might say 
There is a low and lonely place of rest 
Upon whose couch the worn and wearied frame, 
Reposes in forgetfulness—and there 
The streaming eye of misery is closed 
In sweet and dreamless slumber; on that bed 
The painful beatings of the breaking heart. 
Are hushed to stillness; and the harrowing pangs 
Of hopeless agony, are felt no more; 
Around that silent dwelling place, the veil 
