Note 22 — INTERMENTS IN TOWNS. (continued 3)

On a question of fact as to the effect of the common funeral arrangements on the imagination, the testimony of a poet, whose accuracy of description is universally admitted, may be cited. The Rev. Mr. Crabbe thus describes the effect of the funeral array:—

Lo! now what dismal sons of darkness come

To bear this daughter of indulgence home!

Tragedians all, and well arranged in black!

Who nature, feeling, force, expression lack;

Who cause no tear, but gloomily pass by,

And shake their sables in the wearied eye,

That turns disgusted from the pompous scene,

Proud without grandeur, with profusion mean!

The tear for kindness past affection owes;

For worth deceased the sigh from reason flows;

E’en well-feigned passions for our sorrows call,

And real tears for mimic miseries fall:

But this poor farce has neither truth nor art,

To please the fancy or to touch the heart.

* * * * *

Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,

With anxious bustle moves the cumb’rous scene;—

Presents no objects tender or profound,

But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around.

* * * * *

When woes are feigned, how ill such forms appear;

And oh! how needless when the woe’s sincere.

The Parish Register.