Then Rosalind and Queen Catharine’s stately figger glided by; and eloquent Portia and Lady Macbeth a-holdin’ up her lamp, a-lightin’ her on to crime—the light a-shinin’ back into her dark, evil face—
And old King Lear, with faithful Cordelia a-holdin’ his tremblin’ old arms, and a-helpin’ him along.
Then, feelin’ pensive—Il Penseroso, I seemed to see John Milton’s blind eyes lookin’ into Paradise, and the Fairy Queen seemed to look down on us from the tablet of Spenser, and “Rare Ben Jonson,” Chaucer, John Dryden, Thomas Gray—
I wuz a-walkin’ back with him in the old church-yard—“Where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep”—
When Martin interrupted me, and sez he—“Gray, Thomas Gray, I suppose that is the father of Lady Jane Gray.”
I didn’t dispute him, but as I looked at him a-leanin’ back and a-feelin’ big, I allegored to myself—
“We don’t need to remember Micawber or Dombey; we’ve got a livin’ curosity with us.”
Al Faizi wuz deeply interested in the Poet’s Corner. He stood long and silently by the graves of the great dead, and his face wuz a deep mirror of his thoughts.
We stood long and silently by the graves of the great dead.