Thou odious box, as I look on thee, I wonder wilt thou be unlocked for me? No, no! forbear!—yet then, yet then, ’Neath thy grim lid do lie the men— Men whom fortune’s blasted arrows hit, And send them to the pauper’s pit.

p. 87O dig a grave somewhere for me, Deep underneath some wither’d tree; Or bury me on the wildest heath, Where Boreas blows his wildest breath, Or ’mid some wild romantic rocks: But, oh! forbear the pauper’s box.

p. 87

Throw me into the ocean deep, Where many poor forgotten sleep; Or fling my corpse in the battle mound, With coffinless thousands ’neath the ground; I envy not the mightiest dome, But save me from a pauper’s tomb.

I care not if t’were the wild wolf’s glen, Or the prison yard, with wicked men: Or into some filthy dung-hole hurled— Anywhere, anywhere! out of the world! In fire or smoke on land or sea, Than thy grim lid be closed on me.

But let me pause, ere I say more About thee, unoffending door; When I bethink me, now I pause, It is not thee who makes the laws, But villians who, if all were just, In thy grim cell would lay their dust.

But yet, t’were grand beneath yond wall, To lie with friends,—relations all; If sculptured tombstones were not there, But simple grass with daisies fair; And were it not, grim box, for thee ’Twere paradise, O cemetery.

p. 88The Vale of Aire.

p. 88

[It was early in the morning that I took my ramble. I had noticed but little until I arrived at the foot of the quaint old hamlet of Marley. My spirits began to be cheered, for lively gratitude glowed in my heart at the wild romantic scenery before me. Passing the old mansion, I wended my way towards the huge crag called the “Altar Rock.” Wild and rugged as the scenery was, it furnished an agreeable entertainment to my mind, and with pleasure I pushed my way to the top of the gigantic rock, where I viewed the grandeur of the vale below. The blossom on the branches, the crooked Aire gliding along like sheets of polished crystal, made me poetic. I thought of Nicholson, the poet of this beautiful vale, and reclining on a green moss-covered bank, I framed these words.]

Poet Nicholson, old Ebor’s darling bard, Accept from me at least one tributary line; Yet how much more should be thy just reward, Than any wild unpolished song of mine.

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