Churchill's Grave, a Fact Literally Rendered
Lines:43Movement:Romanticism
I stood beside the grave of him who blazedThe Comet of a season, and I sawThe humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of aweOn that neglected turf and quiet stone,With name no clearer than the names unknown,Which lay unread around it; and I asked The Gardener of that ground, why it might beThat for this plant strangers his memory tasked, Through the thick deaths of half a century;And thus he answered--"Well, I do not knowWhy frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;He died before my day of Sextonship, And I had not the digging of this grave."And is this all? I thought,--and do we rip The veil of Immortality, and craveI know not what of honour and of lightThrough unborn ages, to endure this blight?So soon, and so successless? As I said,The Architect of all on which we tread,For Earth is but a tombstone, did essayTo extricate remembrance from the clay,Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought, Were it not that all life must end in one,Of which we are but dreamers;--as he caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,Thus spoke he,--"I believe the man of whomYou wot, who lies in this selected tomb,Was a most famous writer in his day,And therefore travellers step from out their wayTo pay him honour,--and myself whate'er Your honour pleases:"--then most pleased I shook From out my pocket's avaricious nookSome certain coins of silver, which as 'twerePerforce I gave this man, though I could spareSo much but inconveniently:--Ye smile,I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.You are the fools, not I--for I did dwellWith a deep thought, and with a softened eye,On that old Sexton's natural homily,In which there was Obscurity and Fame,--The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.