With joy he yields his breath.
Vain world, farewell! I must be gone,
I cannot longer stay;
My time is spent, my glass is run,
God's will I must obey.
[1] Sister or brother, as the case may be.
Another dirge, ending with the sixth stanza of the foregoing, is used at an infant's funeral, but the rhyme is not so well kept.
WM. DURRANT COOPER.
Cheshire Folk Lore and Superstition.
—There is in this town a little girl, about thirteen years old, in great request among the poor as a charmer in cases of burns or scalds. Immediately on the accident the girl is fetched from her work in the mill; on her arrival she kneels down by the side of the sufferer, mutters a few words, and touches the individual, and the people believe and affirm that the sufferings immediately cease, as she has charmed the fire out of the parts injured. The surgeon's aid is then called in to heal the sores. The girl affirms that she found it out herself by reading her Bible, of which the wonder-working charm is a verse. She will take no reward, nor may any of her relatives; if she or they were, her power would be at an end. She is an ordinary, merry, playful girl; as a surgeon I often come across her in such accidents.