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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
The panting steed is tied to the gate , And the Rector goes into church , in state ; Soon you will see him , in robes of snow , Forth from the church ' s portal go , A holy man , devout and sincere , And much underpaid with two thousand a-year !
Where winds the river through the green , A sombre cavalcade is seen , Bearing the coffin , sedate and slow—Where are they should attend the show ? Four old men the coffin
bear—Mourners and weepers none are there . Four old men , with years bent double , Bear up the pall , and—are paid for their trouble . All are dead whom his youth had known—The poor passes on to his grave alone !
Up to the churchyard ' s gate , at length , The four old men , with failing strength , Have borne their burthen ; lo ! and there The Rector stands , with troubled air ! Those tott'ring bearers , failed and old , Have kept him shivering in the cold , ( The sun shines bright on all beside , ) And baulked him of his morning ride .
Soon the ' customed psalm is said , Soon the hurried verse is read , Once again they lift the dead . From the church ' s open door The funeral train comes forth once more ,
And , feebly bending , scarce can pass Through the tufls of tangled grass . Gather'd round the grave , we see Gaping urchins , two or three — And wither ed dames , in cloak of red , Silent stand while comes the dead .
But playful boys , with shout and bound , Gambol on the burial ground ; Gathering , from the heap'd-up mould , Relics of our nature old . Bones yet fresh and undecay'd ,
And skulls indented with the spade . In that grave the plain rough board , With all that it contains , is lowered ; Seventy years of want and sin Sleep that narrow cell within—And the earth is shovelPd in !
Jarringly , with accent drear , The parting knell grates on the ear . The boys are gone , the bearers fled , The women in their cloaks of red ;
Untitled Article
MO The Village Poor-ttouse .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 540, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/36/
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