I sought the churchyard where the lifeless lie, And envied them, they rest so peacefully. "No wretch comes here, at dead of night." I said, "To drag the weary from his hard-earn'd bed; No schoolboys here with mournful relics play, And kick the 'dome of thought' o'er common clay; No city cur snarls here o'er dead men's bones; No sordid fiend removes memorial stones. The dead have here what to the dead belongs, Though legislation makes not laws, but wrongs." I sought a letter'd stone, on which my tears Had fall'n like thunder-rain, in other years, My mother's grave I sought, in my despair, But found it not! our grave-stone was not there! No we were fallen men, mere workhouse slaves, And how could fallen men have names or graves? I thought of sorrow in the wilderness, And death in solitude, and pitiless Interment in the tiger's hideous maw: I pray'd, and, praying, turn'd from all I saw; My prayers were curses! But the sexton came; How my heart yearn'd to name my Hannah's name! White was his hair, for full of days was he, And walk'd o'er tombstones, like their history. With well feign'd carelessness I rais'd a spade, Left near a grave, which seem'd but newly made, And ask'd who slept below? "You knew him well," The old man answer'd, "Sir, his name was Bell. He had a sister--she, alas! is gone, Body and soul. Sir! for she married one Unworthy of her. Many a corpse he took From this churchyard." And then his head he shook, And utter'd--whispering low, as if in fear That the old stones and senseless dead would hear-- A word, a verb, a noun, too widely famed, Which makes me blush to hear my country named. That word he utter'd, gazing on my face, As if he loath'd my thoughts, then paus'd a space. "Sir," he resumed, "a sad death Hannah died; Her husband--kill'd her, or his own son lied. Vain is your voyage o'er the briny wave, If here you seek her grave--she had no grave! The terror-stricken murderer fled before His crime was known, and ne'er was heard of more. The poor boy died, sir! uttering fearful cries In his last dreams, and with his glaring eyes, And troubled hands, seem'd acting, as it were, His mother's fate. Yes, Sir, his grave is there." * * * * * THE SELECTOR AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. LANDERS' DISCOVERY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE NIGER