Haply some muddle-headed clerk will say, “We used to see him at the peep of dawn, Shaving with hasty strokes his beard away, Whene’er his window-curtains were undrawn. “There would he stand o’erlooking yonder shed, That hides those relics from the public eye, And watch what we were doing with the dead, And count the funerals daily going by. “One morn we miss’d him, in the ’custom’d shop; Behind the counter where he used to be, Another serv’d; nor at his early chop, Nor at the “Cock,” nor at the “Cheese,” was he. “The next, by special wish, with small array, To Kensall Green we saw our neighbour borne, Thither go read (if thou canst read) the lay With which a chum his headstone did adorn.” THE EPITAPH. Here rest with decency the bones in earth, Of one to Comfort and to Health unknown, Miasma ever plagued his humble hearth, And Scarlatina mark’d him for her own. Long was his illness, tedious and severe, Hard by a London Churchyard dwelt our friend; He follow’d to the grave a neighbour’s bier, He met thereby (’twas what he fear’d) his end. No longer seek Corruption to enclose Within the places of mankind’s abode; But far from cities let our dust repose, Where daisies blossom on the verdant clod. (_Published during the dreadful Cholera Visitation, when attention was being called to the danger of burials in the crowded churchyards of the City of London._) _Punch._ September 15, 1849. ――――:o:―――― ELEGY WRITTEN IN A LONDON CHURCHYARD. St. Clement’s tolls the knell of parting day The gaudy shops their portals ’gin to close; The wearied workman homewards wends his way, And leaves the town to silence and repose. Now fades the glare of business from our sight, And o’er the air a solemn stillness rests, Save yon gin-palace’s unholy light, Save yonder crowd’s obscene and drunken jests; Save where the houseless wanderer, forlorn, Casts on yon steeple clock his hopeless eye, Counting the dull, slow hours, until the morn―― Another day to suffer, or to die. Beneath that steeple clock, beneath those stones,―― Beneath that earth piled up in many a heap, Scarce covering their poor dishonour’d bones, Past generations of our fathers sleep. Sleep! do we mock the word? This crowded tomb, In which this morn those hallow’d ashes lay, Must be to-night re-open’d to make room For others who have died since yesterday. No rest is there. Within that narrow space Full――hideously full long years before,―― Still day by day must those now there give place; Still day by day must room be found for more. Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect, Is not the end and object of our song, No, ’tis that others may with us reflect On their sad fate who dwell these graves among.