Young, or gray, or dumb at birth,
He makes all ready with prelude dirge,
With careless foot on his own dark verge.
Like the book recording the village birth,
Fifty years he has kept the file
Of all defunct,—and who meanwhile
May soon desire a strip of earth
Are clearly writ—and the ancient book
Has stamped a gloom upon his look.
And he often grappled with death in the grave,