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—the mere dawn of life— To gather round her tomb. Old men were there Whose eyes were dim And senses failing— Granddames, 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 this early grave! What was the death it would shut in, To that which still would crawl and creep above it! Along the crowded path they bore her now; Pale as the new-fallen snow That covered it; whose day on earth Had been so fleeting. Under that porch where she had sat when Heaven In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, She passed again, and the old church Received her in its quiet shade. Throughout the whole of the above, only two unimportant words have been omitted—_in_ and _its_; “granddames” has been substituted for “grandmothers,” and “e’en” for “almost.” All that remains is exactly as in the original, not a single word transposed, and the punctuation the same to a comma. The brief homily that concludes the funeral is profoundly beautiful. Oh! it is hard to take The lesson that such deaths will teach, But let no man reject it, For it is one that all must learn And is a mighty universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young, For every fragile form from which he lets The parting spirit free, A hundred virtues rise, In shapes of mercy, charity, and love, To walk the world and bless it. Of every tear That sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, Some good is born, some gentler nature comes. Not a word of the original is changed in the above quotation, which is worthy of the best passages in Wordsworth, and thus, meeting on the common ground of a deeply truthful sentiment, the two most unlike men in the literature of the country are brought into close proximation. The following similar passage is from the concluding paragraph of _Nicholas Nickleby_:— The grass was green above the dead boy’s grave, Trodden by feet so small and light, That not a daisy drooped its head Beneath their pressure. Through all the spring and summer time Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands, Rested upon the stone. NIAGARA.