Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PAUPER'S FUNERAL, by ROBERT SOUTHEY



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PAUPER'S FUNERAL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: What! And not one to heave the pious sigh?
Last Line: I pause—and ponder on the days to come.
Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Graves; Grief; Honor; Poverty; Self; Tears; Estrangement; Outcasts; Tombs; Tombstones; Sorrow; Sadness


WHAT! and not one to heave the pious sigh!
Not one whose sorrow-swoln and aching eye
For social scenes, for life's endearments fled,
Shall drop a tear and dwell upon the dead!
Poor wretched outcast! I will weep for thee,
And sorrow for forlorn humanity.
Yes, I will weep; but not that thou art come
To the stern sabbath of the silent tomb:
For squalid want, and the black scorpion care,
Heart-withering fiends! shall never enter there.
I sorrow for the ills thy life has known,
As through the world's long pilgrimage, alone,
Haunted by poverty and woe-begone,
Unloved, unfriended, thou didst journey on:
Thy youth in ignorance and labour past,
And thine old age all barrenness and blast!
Hard was thy fate, which, while it doomed to woe,
Denied thee wisdom to support the blow;
And robbed of all its energy thy mind,
Ere yet it cast thee on thy fellow-kind,
Abject of thought, the victim of distress,
To wander in the world's wide wilderness.

Poor outcast, sleep in peace! the wintry storm
Blows bleak no more on thine unsheltered form;
Thy woes are past; thou restest in the tomb;—
I pause—and ponder on the days to come.





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