Classic Poem

A MAN , long plagued with aches in joint and limb,
Did all the neighbors recommended him,
But, for all that, could nowise gain
Deliverance from his pain.
An ancient dame, to whom he told his case,
Made up a most oracular face,
And thus announced a magic remedy:
‘You must,’ said she,
(Mysteriously hissing in his ear,
And calling him ‘my dear!’)
‘Sit on a good man's grave at early light,
And, with the dew fresh-fallen over night,
Thrice bathe your hands, your knee-joints thrice;
'Twill cure you in a trice:
Remember her who gave you this advice!’

The sick man did just as the grandam said;
(What will not mortals do, to be
Relieved of misery?)
Went, bright and early, to the burying-ground,
And, on a grave-stone ('twas the first he found)
These words, delighted, read:
‘Traveller, what man he was who sleeps below,
This monument and epitaph may show.
The wonder of his time was he,
The pattern of a genuine piety;
And that thou all in a few words may'st learn
Him Church and School and Town and Country mourn.’

Here the poor cripple takes his seat,
And bathes his hands, his joints, his feet;
But all his labor's worse than vain,
It rather aggravates his pain.
With troubled mind he grasps his staff,
Turns from the good man's grave and creeps
On to the next, where lowly sleeps
One honored by no epitaph.
Scarce had he touched the nameless stone,
When lo! each racking pain had flown.
His useless staff forgotten on the ground,
He leaves this holy grave, erect and sound.

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, ‘is there no line to tell
Who was this holy man that makes me well!’
Just then the Sexton did appear;
Of him he asked, ‘Pray, who lies buried here?’
The Sexton waited long, and seemed quite shy
Of making any sort of a reply.
‘Ah!’ he began at length with deep-drawn sigh,
‘God's mercy on us! 'twas a man,
Placed by all honest circles under ban,
Whom scarcely they allowed a decent grave,
Only a miracle whose soul might save;
A heretic, and what is worse,
Wrote plays and verse;
In short, to speak my full conviction,
And without fear of contradiction,
He was an innovator and a scound—’
‘No!’ cried the man, ‘no! I'll be bound!
Not so, though all the world the lie repeat;
But that chap there who sleeps hard by us,
Whom you and all the world call pious,
He was no doubt a scoundrel and a cheat.’