Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836/Scenes in London:—The City Church-Yard

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

46

SCENES IN LONDON.—THE CITY CHURCHYARD.

If there be one object more material, more revolting, more gloomy than another, it is a crowded churchyard in a city. It has neither sympathy nor memory. The pressed-down stones lie heavy upon the very heart. The sunshine cannot get at them for smoke. There is a crowd; and, like most crowds, there is no companionship. Sympathy is the softener of death, and memory of the loved and the lost is the earthly shadow of their immortality. But who turns aside amid those crowds that hurry through the thronged and noisy streets?—No one can love London better than I do; but never do I wish to be buried there. It is the best place in the world for a house, and the worst for a grave. An Irish patriot once candidly observed to me, "Give me London to live in; but let me die in green Ireland:"—now, this is precisely my opinion.

PRAY thee lay me not to rest
    Among these mouldering bones;
Too heavily the earth is prest
    By all these crowded stones.

Life is too gay—life is too near—
    With all its pomp and toil;
I pray thee do not lay me here,
    In such a world-struck soil.

The ceaseless roll of wheels would wake

    The slumbers of the dead;
I cannot bear for life to make
    Its pathway o’er my head.

The flags around are cold and drear,
    They stand apart, alone;
And no one ever pauses here,
    To sorrow for the gone.

No: lay me in the far green fields
    The summer sunshine cheers;
And where the early wild flower yields
    The tribute of its tears.

Where shadows the sepulchral yew,
    Where droops the willow tree;
Where the long grass is filled with dew—
    Oh! make such grave for me!

And passers-by, at evening’s close,
    Will pause beside the grave,
And moralize o’er the repose
    They fear, and yet they crave.

Perhaps some kindly hand may bring
    Its offering to the tomb;
And say, as fades the rose in spring,
    So fadeth human bloom.

But here there is no kindly thought
    To soothe, and to relieve;
No fancies and no flowers are brought,
    That soften while they grieve.

Here Poesy and Love come not—
    It is a world of stone;
The grave is bought—is closed—forgot!
    And then life hurries on.

Sorrow, and beauty—nature—love
    Redeem man’s common breath;
Ah! let them shed the grave above—
    Give loveliness to death.

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