Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844

Of soft refreshing coolness pass'd away;
Back came the troublous thoughts, and, all in vain,
I strove with the tormentors: All in vain,
Applied me with forced interest to peruse
Fair nature's outspread volume: All in vain,
Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds
And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed,
The film – the earthly film obscured my vision,
And in the lower region, sore perplex'd,
Again I wander'd; and again shook off
With vex'd impatience the besetting cares,
And set me straight to gather as I walk'd
A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice;
And, in few moments, of all hues I held
A glowing handful. In a few moments more
Where are they? Dropping as I went along
Unheeded on my path, and I was gone —
Wandering again in muse of thought perplex'd.

Despairingly I sought the social scene —
Sound – motion – action – intercourse of words—
Scarcely of mind – rare privilege! – We talk'd —
Oh! how we talk'd! Discuss'd and solved all questions:
Religion – morals – manners – politics —
Physics and metaphysics – books and authors —
Fashion and dress – our neighbours and ourselves.
But even as the senseless changes rang,
And I help'd ring them, in my secret soul
Grew weariness, disgust, and self-contempt;
And more disturb'd in spirit, I retraced,
More cynically sad, my homeward way.

It led me through the churchyard, and methought
There entering, as I let the iron gate
Swing to behind me, that the change was good —
The unquiet living, for the quiet dead.
And at that moment, from the old church tower
A knell resounded – "Man to his long home"
Drew near. "The mourners went about the streets;"
And there, few paces onward to the right,
Close by the pathway, was an open grave,
Not of the humbler sort, shaped newly out,
Narrow and deep in the dark mould; when closed,
To be roofed over with the living sod,
And left for all adornment (and so best)
To Nature's reverential hand. The tomb,
Made ready there for a fresh habitant,
Was that of an old family. I knew it. —
A very ancient altar-tomb, where Time
With his rough fretwork mark'd the sculptor's art
Feebly elaborate – heraldic shields
And mortuary emblems, half effaced,
Deep sunken at one end, of many names,
Graven with suitable inscriptions, each
Upon the shelving slab and sides; scarce now
Might any but an antiquarian eye
Make out a letter. Five-and-fifty years
The door of that dark dwelling had shut in
The last admitted sleeper. She, 'twas said,
Died of a broken heart – a widow'd mother
Following her only child, by violent death
Cut off untimely, and – the whisper ran —
By his own hand. The tomb was ancient then,
When they two were interr'd; and they, the first
For whom, within the memory of man,
It had been open'd; and their names fill'd up
(With sharp-cut newness mocking the old stone)
The last remaining space. And so it seem'd
The gathering was complete; the appointed number
Laid in the sleeping chamber, and seal'd up
Inviolate till the great gathering day.
The few remaining of the name dispersed —
The family fortunes dwindled – till at last
They sank into decay, and out of sight,
And out of memory; till an aged man
Pass'd by some parish very far away
To die in ours – his legal settlement —
Claim'd kindred with the long-forgotten race,
Its sole survivor, and in right thereof,
Of that affinity, to moulder with them
In the old family grave.

"A natural wish,"
Said the authorities; "and sure enough
He was of the old stock – the last descendant —
And it would cost no more to bury him
Under the old crack'd tombstone, with its scutcheons,
Than in the common ground." So, graciously,
The boon was granted, and he died content.
And now the pauper's funeral had set forth,
And the bell toll'd – not many strokes, nor long —
Pauper's allowance. He was coming home.
But while the train was yet a good way off —
The workhouse burial train – I stopp'd to look
Upon the scene before me; and methought
Oh! that some gifted painter could behold
And give duration to that living picture,
So rich in moral and pictorial beauty,
If seen arightly by the spiritual eye
As with the bodily organ!