The old tomb,
With its quaint tracery, gilded here and there
With sunlight glancing through the o'er-arching lime,
Far flinging its cool shadow, flickering light--
Our greyhair'd sexton, with his hard grey face,
(A living tombstone!) resting on his mattock
By the low portal; and just over right,
His back against the lime-tree, his thin hands
Lock'd in each other--hanging down before him
As with their own dead weight--a tall slim youth
With hollow hectic cheek, and pale parch'd lip,
And labouring breath, and eyes upon the ground
Fast rooted, as if taking measurement
Betime for his own grave. I stopp'd a moment,
Contemplating those thinkers--youth and age--
Mark'd for the sickle; as it seem'd--the _unripe_
To be first gather'd. Stepping forward, then,
Down to the house of death, in vague expectance,
I sent a curious, not unshrinking, gaze.
There lay the burning brain and broken heart,
Long, long at rest: and many a Thing beside
That had been life--warm, sentient, busy life--
Had hunger'd, thirsted, laugh'd, wept, hoped, and fear'd--
Hated and loved--enjoy'd and agonized.
Where of all this, was all I look'd to see?
The mass of crumbling coffins--some belike
(The undermost) with their contents crush'd in,
Flatten'd, and shapeless. Even in this damp vault,
With more completeness could the old Destroyer
Have done his darkling work? Yet lo! I look'd
Into a small square chamber, swept and clean,
Except that on one side, against the wall,
Lay a few fragments of dark rotten wood,
And a small heap of fine, rich, reddish earth
Was piled up in a corner.

"How is this?"
In stupid wonderment I ask'd myself,
And dull of apprehension. Turning, then,
To the old sexton--"Tell me, friend," I said,
"Here should be many coffins--Where are they?
And"--pointing to the earth-heap--"what is that?"

He raised his eyes to mine with a strange look
And strangely meaning smile; and I repeated--
(For not a word he spoke)--my witless question.

Then with a deep distinctness he made answer,
Distinct and slow, looking from whence I pointed,
Full in my face again, and what he said
Thrill'd through my very soul--"_That's what we are!_"

So I was answer'd. Sermons upon death
I had heard many. Lectures by the score
Upon life's vanities. But never words
Of mortal preacher to my heart struck ho