C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Thomas Noel (1799–1861)
The Pauper’s Drive
T
To the church-yard a pauper is going, I wot:
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings:—
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns!
He has left not a gap in the world, now he’s gone,—
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man:
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can.
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns!
The whip, how it cracks! and the wheels, how they spin!
How the dirt, right and left, o’er the hedges is hurled!—
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world!
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns!
To gentility, now that he’s stretched in a coach!
He’s taking a drive in his carriage at last;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast.
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns!
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid!
And be joyful to think, when by death you’re laid low,
You’ve a chance to the grave like a “gemman” to go!
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns!
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend!
Bear soft his bones over the stones!
Though a pauper, he’s one whom his Maker yet owns!