I care not if ’twere the wild wolf’s glen,
Or the prison yard, with wicked men;
Or into some filthy dung-hole hurled—
Anywhere, anywhere! out of the world!
In fire, or smoke, on land, or sea,
Than thy grim lid be closed on me.
But let me pause, ere I say more
About thee, unoffending door;
When I bethink me, now I pause,
It is not thee who makes the laws,
But villains who, if all were just,
In thy grim cell would lay their dust.
But yet, ’twere grand beneath yond wall,
To lay with friends,—relations all;
If sculptured tombstones were never there,
But simple grass with daisies fair;
And were it not, grim box, for thee
’Twere paradise, O cemetery.
A. APPLEYARD, PRINTER, CHURCH GREEN, KEIGHLEY.