Tixall Poetry/A Domesday Thought
A Domesday Thought.
Oft when I hear a blustering wind,With a tempestuous murmur joined,I fancy, Nature in this blastPractises how to breathe her last:Or sighs for poor man's misery,Or pants for fair eternity.
Go to the dull church-yard, and seeThose hillocks of mortality;Where proudest man is only foundBy a small swelling in the ground.What crouds of carcasses are madeSlaves to the pick-axe and the spade!Dig but a foot or two, to makeA cold bed for thy dead friend's sake, 'Tis odds, but in that scanty room,Thou robb'st another of his tomb;Or, in thy delving, smit'st uponA shin-bone, or a cranion!