The sun through hazy Autumn skies Shone on the simple obsequies, As round the open grave they stood, In reverential attitude, And shovelled in the brown sea sand; One, with a prayer-book in his hand, Essayed the rôle of corybant; Omitting the accustomed chant, He read a burial service there, Concluding with its words of prayer: 'Ashes to ashes! Dust to dust!' These words of that abiding trust, In life beyond the fleeting span Which heaven has accorded man; Elysian fields, where perfect peace Succeeds life's transitory lease; The inextinguishable fire Of faith, the daughter of desire, Glows brightest, when the faltering breath Is conscious of approaching death; Bent 'neath the weight of many years, The form of hoary age appears, E'en as the failing hourglass shows That life is drawing to its close, And when the final sands are spent, The trembling limbs make their descent Into the shadows, while the ray Of faith illuminates the way. Vain introspection, which descries No light behind the mysteries Of death, engenders in the breast But vacant yearnings and unrest; Relying on the eye of hope, We look beyond our mundane scope, And with enraptured vision see The fore-gleams of futurity. With eager eyes I watched them stand, Upon that barren waste of sand, Until the final words of prayer Had died away upon the air. Their words, euphonious and clear, Were wafted to my listening ear, Borne on a favorable breeze Which blew directly from the seas; My breast, with deep emotion stirred, I recognized their every word, An English burial ritual read, On this wild shore, above the dead. This dissipated every fear, I knew deliverance was near; My secret would be safe among The scions of the English tongue. Forever from the light of day They laid his pallid form away, While every word and action proved Their rites were over one they loved. Soon from the level of the ground, There rose another silent mound, To teach, beside that northern sea, Its lesson of mortality. Death on that dismal northern main, In binding with its silent chain Forever their lamented mate, Had freed me from a sterner fate. Leaving my earstwhile hiding place, I stood before them face to face; Then in their own vernacular, Gave proper salutation there. 'Twas plain that they regarded me As human salvage, which the sea Had, in some evil moment, tossed Upon that bleak and barren coast, Like broken wreckage or debris, Cast up by the capricious sea. With frank but sympathetic eyes, They watched me with no small surprise, While I rehearsed without delay, My story as a castaway.