may no wolfe howle; no screech owle stir
a wing about thy sepulchre!
no boysterous winds or stormes e hither,
to starve or wither
thy soft sweet earth! but, like a spring,
love kept it ever ?ourishing.
herrick.
in the course of an excursion through one of the remote ties of england, i had struto one of those cross-roads that lead through the more secluded parts of the try, and stopped oernoon at a village the situation of which was beautifully rural aired. there was an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants not to be found in the villages which lie on the great coach-roads. i determio pass the night there, and, having taken an early dinner, strolled out to enjoy the neighb sery.
my ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon led me to the church, which stood at a little distance from the village.
indeed, it was an object of some curiosity, its old tower being pletely overrun with ivy so that only here and there a jutting buttress, an angle of gray wall, or a fantastically carved or peered through the verdant c. it was a lovely evening. the early part of the day had been dark and showery, but iernoon it had cleared up, and, though sullen clouds still hung overhead, yet there was a broad tract of golden sky in the west, from which the setting sun gleamed through the dripping leaves and lit up all nature into a melancholy smile. it seemed like the parting hour of a good christian smiling on the sins and sorrows of the world, and giving, in the serenity of his dee, an assurahat he will rise again in glory.
i had seated myself on a half-suombstone, and was musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on past ses and early friends--on those who were distant and those who were dead--and indulging in that kind of melancholy fang which has in it something sweeter even than pleasure. every now and theroke of a bell from the neighb tower fell on my ear; its tones were in unison with the se, and, instead of jarring, chimed in with my feelings; and it was some time before i recollected that it must be tolling the knell of some enant of the tomb.
presently i saw a funeral train moving across the village green; it wound slowly along a lane, was lost, and reappeared through the breaks of the hedges, until it passed the place where i was sitting. the pall was supported by young girls dressed in white, and another, about the age of seventeen, walked before, bearing a cha
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