[A GRAVE-STONE UPON THE FLOOR IN THE CLOISTERS OF WORCESTER CATHEDRAL]
Composed 1828.[565]—Published 1829 (in The Keepsake)
["Miserrimus." Many conjectures have been formed as to the person who lies under this stone. Nothing appears to be known for a certainty. Query—The Rev. Mr. Morris, a non-conformist, a sufferer for conscience-sake; a worthy man who, having been deprived of his benefice after the accession of William III., lived to an old age in extreme destitution, on the alms of charitable Jacobites.—I.F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
"Miserrimus!" and neither name nor date,
Prayer, text, or symbol, graven upon the stone;[566]
Nought but that word assigned to the unknown,
That solitary word—to separate
From all, and cast a cloud around the fate 5
Of him who lies beneath. Most wretched one,
Who chose his epitaph?—Himself alone
Could thus have dared the grave to agitate,
And claim, among the dead, this awful crown;
Nor doubt that He marked also for his own 10
Close to these cloistral steps a burial-place,
That every foot might fall with heavier tread,
Trampling upon his vileness. Stranger, pass
Softly!—To save the contrite, Jesus bled.
FOOTNOTES:
[565] This, and the following sonnet on the tradition of Oker Hill, first published in The Keepsake of 1829, appeared in the 1832 edition of the Poetical Works.—Ed.
[566] The stone is in the cloisters of Worcester Cathedral, at the north-west corner of the quadrangle, just below the doorway leading into the nave of the cathedral. It is a small stone, two feet, by one and a half. The Reverend Thomas Maurice (or Morris)—a minor canon of Worcester, and vicar of Clains—refused to take the oath of allegiance at the Revolution Settlement, and was accordingly deprived of his benefice. He lived to the age of 88, on the generosity of the richer non-jurors, and died 1748. (See Murray's Guide to Warwickshire, and Richard King's Handbook to the Cathedral of Worcester.)—Ed.