| |
| 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 that the sad driver sings:— | |
| “Rattle his bones over the stones; | 5 |
| He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns!” | |
| |
| Oh, 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 carcase 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!”… | |
| |
| You bumpkin, who stare at your brother conveyed; | |
| Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid, | 20 |
| 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!” | |
| |
| But a truce to this strain—for my soul it is sad, | 25 |
| To think that a heart in humanity clad | |
| Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end, | |
| And depart from the light without leaving a friend. | |
| Bear softly his bones over the stones; | |
| Though a pauper, he’s one whom his Maker yet owns. | 30 |
| |
