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.