Poems (Southey)/Volume 1/The Pauper's Funeral
Musings.
The PAUPER's FUNERAL.
What! and not one to heave the pious sigh!Not one whose sorrow-swoln and aching eyeFor social scenes, for life's endearments fled,Shall drop a tear and dwell upon the dead!Poor wretched Outcast! I will weep for thee,And sorrow for forlorn humanity.Yes I will weep, but not that thou art comeTo the stern Sabbath of the silent tomb:For squalid Want, and the black scorpion Care,Heart-withering fiends! shall never enter there.I sorrow for the ills thy life has knownAs thro' the world's long pilgrimage, alone,Haunted by Poverty and woe-begone,Unloved, unfriended, thou didst journey on:Thy youth in ignorance and labour past,And thine old age all barrenness and blast! Hard was thy Fate, which, while it doom'd to woe,Denied thee wisdom to support the blow;And robb'd of all its energy thy mind,Ere yet it cast thee on thy fellow-kind,Abject of thought, the victim of distress,To wander in the world's wide wilderness.
Poor Outcast sleep in peace! the wintry stormBlows bleak no more on thine unshelter'd form;Thy woes are past; thou restest in the tomb;—I pause—and ponder on the days to come.1795.