What a tremor of silence sharpened the air! I was shaking.
The poor papa read a chapter from the Bible. He described his loving son’s life, in doleful honourableness.
“There are a thousand flowers in Spring,”—the poet spoke—“whose repute is not extensively spoken, like that of the rose or violet. Some of them are not given even a name. They spend their smile and odour into the breeze, and die without any repining. They are content, because they are true to God. So a poet’s life should be. What is celebrity? Keats was told of his beautiful graveyard, and he said: ‘I have already seemed to feel the flowers growing over me.’ If this poet, whom we now bury, had been told of this hill, he might have said: ‘I see already the butterflies beaming over my head.’ Spring is coming. The poppies and buttercups shall dress the hill.”
A church-bell chimed from the valley.
We left the buried to his solitude.
My uncle and I sat under an acacia tree, silent for some time.
“Look, Morning Glory!” he said, exhibiting a silver piece.
“Is there any story about that dollar?”
“The father of the dead paid me for carrying the coffin.”