’Tis hard we can’t give up our breath,
And to the earth our earth bequeath,
Without Death-Fetches after death,
Who thus exhume us;
And snatch us from our homes beneath,
And hearths posthumous.
The tender lover comes to rear
The mournful urn, and shed his tear—
Her glorious dust, he cries, is here!
Alack! alack!
The while his Sacharissa dear
Is in a sack!
’Tis hard one cannot lie amid
The mould, beneath a coffin-lid,
But thus the Faculty will bid
Their rogues break through it,
If they don’t want us there, why did
They send us to it?
One of these sacrilegious knaves,
Who crave as hungry vulture craves,
Behaving as the ghoul behaves,
‘Neath church-yard wall—
Mayhap because he fed on graves,
Was named Jack Hall.
By day it was his trade to go
Tending the black coach to and fro;
And sometimes at the door of woe,
With emblems suitable,
He stood with brother Mute, to show
That life is mutable.
But long before they pass’d the ferry,
The dead that he had help’d to bury,
He sack’d—(he had a sack to carry
The bodies off in)
In fact, he let them have a very
Short fit of coffin.
Night after night, with crow and spade,
He drove this dead but thriving trade,
Meanwhile his conscience never weigh’d
A single horsehair;
On corses of all kinds he prey’d,
A perfect corsair!
At last—it may be, Death took spite,
Or, jesting only, meant to fright—
He sought for Jack night after night
The churchyards round;
And soon they met, the man and sprite,
In Pancras’ ground.
Jack, by the glimpses of the moon,
Perceiv’d the bony knacker soon,
An awful shape to meet at noon
Of night and lonely;
But Jack’s tough courage did but swoon
A minute only.
Anon he gave his spade a swing
Aloft, and kept it brandishing,
Ready for what mishaps might spring
From this conjunction;
Funking indeed was quite a thing
Beside his function.