MY OWN FUNERAL. (From Beranger.)

This morning, as in bed I lay, Half waking and half sleeping, A score of Loves, immensely gay, Were round my chamber creeping; I could not move my hand or head To ask them what the stir meant; And “Ah!” they cried, “our friend is dead; Prepare for his interment!” All whose hearts with mine were blended, Weep for me! my days are ended! One drinks my brightest Burgundy, Without a blush, before me; One brings a little rosary, And breathes a blessing o’er me; One finds my pretty chambermaid, And courts her in dumb crambo; Another sees the mutes arrayed With fife by way of flambeau: In your feasting and your fêting, Weep for me! my hearse is waiting. Was ever such a strange array? The mourners all are singing; From all the churches on our way A merry peal is ringing; The pall that clothes my cold remains, Instead of boars and dragons, Is blazoned o’er with darts and chains, With lutes, and flowers, and flagons: Passers-by their heads are shaking!— Weep for me! my grave is making. And now they let my coffin fall; And one of them rehearses, For want of holy ritual, My own least holy verses: The sculptor carves a laurel leaf, And writes my name and story; And silent nature in her grief Seems dreaming of my glory: Just as I am made immortal,— Weep for me!—they bar the portal. But Isabel, by accident, Was wandering by that minute; She opened that dark monument, And found her slave within it; The clergy said the Mass in vain, The College could not save me; But life, she swears, returned again With the first kiss she gave me: You who deem that life is sorrow, Weep for me again to-morrow!