He stands (or sets) with that high, noble forward and good-lookin’ featers, and eyes that look clear through your soul, and that deep collar of hisen on, under a arch that has some cupids up on each side on top, and coats-of-arms, and skulls, and things.
And there he has stood (or sot) through the centuries, jest as I spoze he would wanted to, with a paper in one hand and a pen in the other, to all appearance a-writin’, and the hull world a-readin’ it.
In front of the altar rails are the marble slabs over the graves of the Shakespeare family, among them his wife, Anne Hathaway; it reads as follers—
“Here lyeth interred the body of Anne,
Wife of William Shakspere, who depted this life the
6 day of Aug. 1623, being of the age of 67 years.”
Another slab marks the grave of Susanna, the poet’s daughter.
But, of course, the slab that gin me the biggest sized emotions, and the greatest number on ’em, wuz the one over the poet, which has these mysterious and immortal lines on’t—
“Good friend, for Jesu’s sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare;