Who in the wilderness would wish to wander,
Whose feet have trodden once the promised land?
Believe that all is well, nor pause to ponder
On things that mortals cannot understand.
He is most bless'd that is the firmest trusting,
Believing One that's wiser far than he,—
Is, for his good, the balance still adjusting;
So—tell my parents not to mourn for me.
I now can see what might have been my story,
Had I remained through man's allotted day:
(Sorrow for joy, dark age for youth and glory:)
And bless the love that hastened me away.
And wafted me across the mystic river,
Where all discords and elements agree,
Calmed by His word, that can from death deliver,
So tell my loved ones not to mourn for me.
TOMBSTONES IN ALTARNON CHURCHYARD CUT BY BURNARD
He was equally ready to lampoon any one, whether friend or foe; probably accommodating his muse to the humour of those with whom he happened to be.
One day he had been making a sketch of a farmer called Nicoll, and resorted to the public-house in Liskeard with his patron. Whilst there he scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to his friend Nicoll:—
Cash is scarce, and fortune's fickle;
I should like to draw some silver now,
As I've all day been drawing nickel.
There is at Penpont House, Altarnon, a small profile head of Burnard executed by himself. It is a cameo in plaster of Paris. He is said to have sketched his face by looking in a mirror, and then cut an intaglio in slate from his drawing.
Nevil N. Burnard died in the Union, Redruth, of heart and kidney complaint, 27th November, 1878.