(_For the Mirror._)
"After life's fitful fever be sleeps well."
_Shakspeare_.
(In opening the tomb of the founder of the Abbey at Tewkesbury, the body
of the Abbot was found clothed in full canonicals. The crosier was as
perfect as when, perhaps, first put in the coffin, while the body showed
scarcely any symptom of decay, though it had been entombed considerably
above six hundred years. On exposure to the air, the boots alone of the
Abbot were seen to sink, when the tomb was ordered to be sealed up, and
his holiness again committed in his darkness. On the above circumstance
this sketch is founded.)
Is this to be dead? Am I not clad in all pontifical splendour? Do I not
feel the crosier on my breast? The holy brethren of the Abbey surround
me. That which distinguished the Abbot when alive, is even here in
collected magnificence. I feel the priestly consequence of the Abbot. Is
this then the Chamber of the Dead? The pious monks are weeping. The
tears which have flowed before the marble shrine are recalled to weep
for a departed brother. The incense is full fragrant. I enjoy the
perception of its odour. It dilates in my stiffened nostrils, but it
supplies me not the breath of life. I hear the loud Hosanna chanted for
a soul which dies in the Lord. I will repeat the strain. No. My voice
refuses to fall back upon the ear. Where is my heart that it beats not
swelling to the anthem's measure? Cold! cold! cold! Nay; I will rise. I
will respond unto the funeral dirge. I will shout. Oh! my trunk is
hardened, and my tongue is glued. Silence! they pause. Say, do they hear
me? No. Silence, horrible and awful. Hark! they mourn with lamentation
on my fate. O, Heaven! must I endure all this? Must the living weep for
the dead, and the conscious dead be doomed to dismal silence. Horror!
horror! horror! IS THIS TO BE DEAD?
* * * * *
A convocation! Yes. The holy brothers in assembled synod to elect a
brother holier than themselves. Nay, I do forbid. I, the Abbot who have
loved ye all, refuse permission to your meeting. Disperse, disperse. Do
ye not hear? Is there no charity alive? Who dares usurp my chair, and I
not yet entombed? What! is justice driven out where heavenly men should
dwell? I see it. I mark it. The leaven of pride is kneaded in the
brotherhood. Intriguing hypocrites usurp the House of God. What! brother
John, the fat, the corpulent, the lazy! of whom I know ten thousand
heinous sins; the least sufficient to condemn a soul. An Abbot, chosen
by the holy, is the elect of God. But he--no, no, no. It shall not be.
God will forbid it. They put the crosier in his hand. For shame! for
shame! Let not the vicious living sit in the chair of virtue that is
departed. Why see! he kneels. He kneels before the shrine, where, until
now, he never bent to pray. He grasps the crosier with loving firmness.
It shall not be. Is there no interposing Deity to slay the sinner in his
wickedness? I, I will seize the crosier from his filthy hand. No. My arm
lays idly at my side. Is THIS TO BE DEAD?
* * * * *
They chant the funeral dirge. The mighty torches flash their blazing
light upon the frozen features of the dead. Mine eyes are sealed. I
strain to open them. No. Light gleams in upon me as through a clear
veil. Ah! monster of hateful mien! demon deceitful in religious robes!
avaunt! Thou shalt not touch my corpse. No. Thank God! It is a foretaste
of thy love to come. He passes on. He dares not lay polluted hands upon
the dead, whose becalmed face is looking up to thee. The dead, the
sacred dead. The living are for the world, the dead are Thine. Incense,
and prayer, and psalms for the departed. It is respectful, but what heed
I? Man comes into the world only to go out thereof. What then? The
grave! Horror. I have preached thereof. I have shocked others with the
enormities of life until they clung unto the grave. Now, I who have
bidden the virtuous look to the hopes beyond it, myself would cry to
live. But no! they bear me on. He, the foul monster, grins as he looks
upon my outstretched limbs. Wolf, I'll pray for thee. Breathe, breathe
hardly, ye distended nostrils; it is your last pulsation with the air of
earth. No. Sealed as the marble figures by which they bear me. Is this
my Tomb. Is this the narrow house appointed for the living? Is this the
Abbot's palace after death? Nay, I pray thee, brethren, close me not up
in yon receptacle. Where the cold air might shiver on my flesh I may be
happy. Yon tomb is dark and dismal, shut from the eye of day. Louder and
louder grows your chant, I know its terminating cadence. It falls upon
mine ear. Take off this stony lid. Nay, I will knock, knock, knock. My
arms are still unraised. They hear me not. Brethren! men! christians!
no, monks, monks, monks, cold as the stone ye place upon my breast! Have
ye no ears? no hearts? Do I not shout? Do I not pray? Ah! my tongue is
one of marble. It is cold and fixed. They will not hear me. Listen!
their parting and receding steps. Nay, hasten not away. Silence. No. One
step is lingering behind. Thank God! I shout. Brother! what, ho! He
hears. Brother! He pauses. What ho! He goes. Brother! Silence is around,
hushed as my own attempts to burst a voice. Hark! a noise. No. Silence.
Is THIS TO BE DEAD?
* * * * *
Yet in the grave. Years have rolled away. Successors to my chair sleep
in the stony sepulchres around me. Monks whom I have awed or blessed,
slumber in death. Men, whom I have known not, walk in the cloisters I
have built. I am but mentioned as a thing that was--the memory of a
name. Enough. There is no communion among the dead. Methought the
spirits of the other world held converse on the joys they left on earth.
But all is still. I cannot hear a lament, even for a rotted bone. The
dead are tongue-tied. In yonder chancel sleeps a monarch, murdered by
bloody relations. Should not such a spirit shriek aloud for vengeance,
or weep a wailing for his destiny? But all is still. I hear no night owl
screech. Earth is the only dwelling place of noise. Death knows it not.
Methinks a shriek were music, a sigh were melody, a groan a feast. But
no. Time has almost used me to its sombre sameness. Is not time tired to
have gone so long the same unchanging course? I cannot move. My joints
are aching with continued rest. I cannot turn:--my sides are sunken in.
Would I could turn and crush them into bones with my reclining weight.
Is my heart sinful that it weighs down all my body. Is this the gnawing
and undying worm? Is THIS TO BE DEAD.
* * * * *
Six hundred years and still I am in the tomb. So much of man has sought
a refuge in the grave. I well may ask if life is yet on earth. Has man
degraded or is England ruined! I hear the footsteps of those that gaze
upon the stony sepulchres. I feel the glaring of their curious eyes
between the crevices which time has uncemented. They make remarks. Is
then a tomb a monument of wonder? They talk of monks as things that are
no more. Then is the world no more. At last the time is come. They lay
their iron hand upon the stone. They knock, they knock. Hark! It rings
through the giant isles till the echo thrills with joy. They knock the
stony cerement that enshrines me. Great Heaven! I thank thee! Used as I
am become to my hollow narrowness, I shall rejoice to quit it. The lid
upraises. I feel the air. I feel the air. Now, now, let me rise. I feel
myself prepared. Ah! the boots fall off. I shall ascend. The boots fall
off. What are there none to raise me? See, they grin. Am I not come unto
the resurrection of the life? What! that horrid lid again. O, no, no.
They stifle me again. They fasten me to sleep--to sleep--to sleep. THIS,
THIS IS TO BE DEAD.