Churchill's Grave,[59]

A Fact Literally Rendered.[60]     I stood beside the grave of him who blazed     The Comet of a season, and I saw     The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed     With not the less of sorrow and of awe     On that neglected turf and quiet stone,     With name no clearer than the names unknown,     Which lay unread around it; and I asked     The Gardener of that ground, why it might be     That for this plant strangers his memory tasked,     Through the thick deaths of half a century;     And thus he answered - "Well, I do not know     Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;     He died before my day of Sextonship,     And I had not the digging of this grave."     And is this all? I thought, - and do we rip     The veil of Immortality, and crave     I know not what of honour and of light     Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?     So soon, and so successless? As I said,[61]     The Architect of all on which we tread,     For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay     To extricate remembrance from the clay,     Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought,     Were it not that all life must end in one,     Of which we are but dreamers; - as he caught     As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,[62]     Thus spoke he, - "I believe the man of whom     You wot, who lies in this selected[63] tomb,     Was a most famous writer in his day,     And therefore travellers step from out their way     To pay him honour, - and myself whate'er     Your honour pleases:" - then most pleased I shook[l]     From out my pocket's avaricious nook     Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere     Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare     So much but inconveniently: - Ye smile,     I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,     Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.     You are the fools, not I - for I did dwell     With a deep thought, and with a softened eye,     On that old Sexton's natural homily,     In which there was Obscurity and Fame, -     The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.     Diodati, 1816.                 [First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]