| |
| THERE ’s a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot,— | |
| To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot; | |
| The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs; | |
| And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings; | |
| Rattle his bones over the stones! | 5 |
| He ’s only a pauper whom nobody owns! | |
| |
| O, where are the mourners? Alas! there are none, | |
| He has left not a gap in the world, now he ’s gone,— | |
| Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man; | |
| To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can: | 10 |
| Rattle his bones over the stones! | |
| He ’s only a pauper whom nobody owns! | |
| |
| What a jolting and creaking and splashing and din! | |
| The whip, how it cracks! and the wheels, how they spin! | |
| How the dirt, right and left, o’er the hedges is hurled! | 15 |
| The pauper at length makes a noise in the world! | |
| Rattle his bones over the stones! | |
| He ’s only a pauper whom nobody owns! | |
| |
| Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach | |
| To gentility, now that he ’s stretched in a coach! | 20 |
| He ’s taking a drive in his carriage at last! | |
| But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast: | |
| Rattle his bones over the stones! | |
| He ’s only a pauper whom nobody owns! | |
| |
| You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed, | 25 |
| Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid! | |
| And be joyful to think, when by death you ’re laid low, | |
| You ’ve a chance to the grave like a gemman to go! | |
| Rattle his bones over the stones! | |
| He ’s only a pauper whom nobody owns! | 30 |
| |
| But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad, | |
| To think that a heart in humanity clad | |
| Should make, like the brute, such a desolate end, | |
| And depart from the light without leaving a friend! | |
| Bear soft his bones over the stones! | 35 |
| Though a pauper, he ’s one whom his Maker yet owns! | |
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