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How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

(GRAY: Elegy Written in Country Churchyard)

THE BURIAL OF LITTLE NELL

And now the bell - the bell she had so often heard, by night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice - rung its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth - on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses fading; grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old; the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl and creep above it?

Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly fallen snow that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting. Under the porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that

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peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its quiet shade. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! Many a young hand dropped its little wreath; many a stifled sob was heard; some, and they were not few, knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in their sorrow.

...

The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be replaced. They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place, when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall and arch, and most of all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave,- in that calm time, when outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them, then with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God.

(DICKENS: The Old Curiosity Shop)

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS

Oft in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me

Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm'd and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me

Sad memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so link'd together

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but him departed!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me

Sad memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

(MOORE: The Light of Other Days)

THE BABY IS DEAD

There is a white hatchment over the portal - a long streamer of snowy crepe trails from the muffled bellknob, like a film of ghostly morning mist. We know that an impalpable footstep has fallen on this threshold; that a shadowy hand has knocked at this shrouded door; that the dread visitant, who is not to be denied or turned away, has entered there; he has entered and departed, but the veiled mourner, Sorrow, who treads solemnly after him, has stayed behind.

His ruthless hand has plucked the white bud of promise that gladdened the fair garland of household love the bud that breathed the yet infolded perfume of sweet but undefined hopes, that coming years would ripen to fruition. His remorseless foot has fallen beside this hearthstone - and lo! the dread footprint has hollowed a little grave. The baby is dead.

The tiny image, white as sculptured Parian, lies yonder in its snowy casket, draped in spotless fabrics, and wreathed in funeral flowers. The mother bends with anguished eyes over the still, small effigy of her last hope, but the baby is not there. Out of her arms, out of life, something has gone that will not return. The sealed lids will not uplift from happy sleep, the wondering eyes will search her face no more. The little restless hands lie still and pulseless, frozen into eternal quiet, their silken touches, vague and aimless as the kisses of the south wind, will steal into her bosom to soothe her weariness and assuage her grief, no more. She realizes this, and with all the live, pulsating grief of newly-bereaved motherhood, she leans above the dainty coffin, and slow, scalding tears, wrung from the very fibres of her bruised life, drop one by one on the unconscious face.

..

And the days lengthen, and the nights fall, and the years roll on. She keeps the key to baby's casket in her bosom - the memory of her rosebud far within her breast - and life, for her, is never again quite what it used to be ere baby died.

(BROWN: The Baby is Dead)

KING DAVID MOURNS FOR ABSALOM

The waters slept. Night's silvery veil hung low
On Jordan's bosom, and the eddies curled

Their glassy rings beneath it, like the still,

Unbroken beating of the sleeper's pulse.
The reeds bent down the stream; the willow leaves,

With a soft cheek upon the lulling tide,
Forgot the lifting winds; and the long stems,
Whose flowers the water, like a gentle nurse,
Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way,
And leaned, in graceful attitudes, to rest.

How strikingly the course of nature tells,
By its light heed of human suffering,
That it was fashioned for a happier world!

King David's limbs were weary. He had fled
From far Jerusalem; and now he stood
With his faint people, for a little rest
Upon the shores of Jordan. The light wind
Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow
To its refreshing breath; for he had worn
The mourner's covering, and had not felt
That he could see his people until now.
They gathered round him on the fresh green bank,
And spoke their kindly words; and, as the sun
Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them there,
And bowed his head upon his hands to pray.

Oh! when the heart is full - when bitter thoughts
Come crowding thickly up for utterance,
And the poor, common words of courtesy
Are such a very mockery how much

The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer!

(WILLIS: Absalom)

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