And saying so, with heavy blow, the lid he shattered wide,
And, pale with fright, a ghastly sight that sexton gray espied;
A miserable sight it was, that loathsome corpse to see,
The last, last, dreary, darksome stage of fall'n humanity.
Though all was gone, save reeky bone, a green and grisly heap,
With scarce a trace of fleshly face, strange posture did it keep.
The hands were clenched, the teeth were wrenched, as if the wretch had risen,
E'en after death had ta'en his breath, to strive and burst his prison.
The neck was bent, the nails were rent, no limb or joint was straight;
Together glued, with blood imbued, black and coagulate.
And, as the sexton stooped him down to lift the coffin plank,
His fingers were defiled all o'er with slimy substance dank.
"Ah, welladay!" that sexton gray unto himself did cry,
"Full well I see how Fate's decree foredoomed this wretch to die;
A living man, a breathing man, within the coffin thrust,
Alack! alack! the agony ere he returned to dust!"
A vision drear did then appear unto that sexton's eyes;
Like that poor wight before him straight he in a coffin lies.
He lieth in a trance within that coffin close and fast;
Yet though he sleepeth now, he feels he shall awake at last.
The coffin, then, by reverend men, is borne with footsteps slow,
Where tapers shine before the shrine, where breathes the requiem low;
And for the dead the prayer is said, for the soul that is not flown—
Then all is drowned in hollow sound, the earth is o'er him thrown!
He draweth breath—he wakes from death to life more horrible;
To agony! such agony! no living tongue may tell.
Die! die he must, that wretched one! he struggles—strives in vain;
No more Heaven's light, nor sunshine bright, shall he behold again.
"Gramercy, Lord!" the sexton roared, awakening suddenly,
"If this be dream, yet doth it seem most dreadful so to die.
Oh, cast my body in the sea! or hurl it on the shore!
But nail me not in coffin fast—no grave will I dig more."
It was not difficult to discover the effect produced by this song, in the lengthened faces of the greater part of the audience. Jack Palmer, however, laughed loud and long.
"Bravo, bravo!" cried he; "that suits my humor exactly. I can't abide the thoughts of a coffin. No deal box for me."