Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years.

Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years.

O how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole read more

O how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living.

Alas, poor Tom! how oft, with merry heart,
Have we beheld thee play the Sexton's part;
Each read more

Alas, poor Tom! how oft, with merry heart,
Have we beheld thee play the Sexton's part;
Each comic heart must now be grieved to see
The Sexton's dreary part performed on thee.

Nigh to a grave that was newly made,
Leaned a sexton old on his earth-worn spade.

Nigh to a grave that was newly made,
Leaned a sexton old on his earth-worn spade.

A grave, wherever found, preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul.

A grave, wherever found, preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul.

We weep over the graves of infants and the little ones taken from us by death; but an early grave read more

We weep over the graves of infants and the little ones taken from us by death; but an early grave may be the shortest way to heaven.

Of all
The fools who flock'd to swell or see the show
Who car'd about the corpse? read more

Of all
The fools who flock'd to swell or see the show
Who car'd about the corpse? The funeral
Made the attraction, and the black the woe;
There throbb'd not there a thought which pierc'd the pall.

The grave's the market place.

The grave's the market place.

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country
churchyard, than in the tombs of the read more

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country
churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets.