The Choirmaster's Burial

He often would ask us     That, when he died,     After playing so many     To their last rest,     If out of us any     Should here abide,     And it would not task us,     We would with our lutes     Play over him     By his grave-brim     The psalm he liked best -     The one whose sense suits     "Mount Ephraim" -     And perhaps we should seem     To him, in Death's dream,     Like the seraphim.     As soon as I knew     That his spirit was gone     I thought this his due,     And spoke thereupon.     "I think," said the vicar,     "A read service quicker     Than viols out-of-doors     In these frosts and hoars.     That old-fashioned way     Requires a fine day,     And it seems to me     It had better not be."     Hence, that afternoon,     Though never knew he     That his wish could not be,     To get through it faster     They buried the master     Without any tune.     But 'twas said that, when     At the dead of next night     The vicar looked out,     There struck on his ken     Thronged roundabout,     Where the frost was graying     The headstoned grass,     A band all in white     Like the saints in church-glass,     Singing and playing     The ancient stave     By the choirmaster's grave.     Such the tenor man told     When he had grown old.