Poems (Southey)/Volume 2/The Funeral
For works with similar titles, see The Funeral.
ECLOGUE III.
THE FUNERAL.
The [1]coffin as I past across the lane Came sudden on my view. It was not here, A sight of every day, as in the streets Of the great city, and we paus'd and ask'd Who to the grave was going. It was one, A village girl, they told us, who had borne An eighteen months strange illness, and had pinedWith such slow wasting that the hour of deathCame welcome to her. We pursued our wayTo the house of mirth, and with that idle talkThat passes o'er the mind and is forgot,We wore away the time. But it was eveWhen homewardly I went, and in the airWas that cool freshness, that discolouring shadeThat makes the eye turn inward. Then I heardOver the vale the heavy toll of deathSound slow; it made me think upon the dead,I questioned more and learnt her sorrowful tale.She bore unhusbanded a mother's name,And he who should have cherished her, far offSail'd on the seas, self-exil'd from his home,For he was poor. Left thus, a wretched one,Scorn made a mock of her, and evil tonguesWere busy with her name. She had one illHeavier, neglect, forgetfulness from himWhom she had loved so dearly. Once he wrote, But only once that drop of comfort cameTo mingle with her cup of wretchedness;And when his parents had some tidings from him,There was no mention of poor Hannah there,Or 'twas the cold enquiry, bittererThan silence. So she pined and pined awayAnd for herself and baby toil'd and toil'd,Nor did she, even on her death bed, restFrom labour, knitting with her outstretch'd armsTill she sunk with very weakness. Her old motherOmitted no kind office, and she work'dHard, and with hardest working barely earn'dEnough to make life struggle and prolongThe pains of grief and sickness. Thus she layOn the sick bed of poverty, so wornWith her long suffering and that painful thoughtThat at her heart lay rankling, and so weak,That she could make no effort to expressAffection for her infant; and the child,Whose lisping love perhaps had solaced her With a strange infantine ingratitudeShunn'd her as one indifferent. She was pastThat anguish, for she felt her hour draw on,And 'twas her only comfoft now to thinkUpon the grave. "Poor girl!" her mother said,"Thou hast suffered much!" "aye mother! there is none"Can tell what I have suffered!" she replied,"But I shall soon be where the weary rest."And she did rest her soon, for it pleased GodTo take her to his mercy.
- ↑ It is proper to remark that the story related in this Eclogue is strictly true. I met the funeral, and learnt the circumstances in a village in Hampshire. The indifference of the child was mentioned to me; indeed no addition whatever has been made to the story. I should have thought it wrong to have weakened the effect of a faithful narrative by adding any thing.