Classic Poem

Then the Earl, he bade them lift her lightly,
And bury her by the grey sea-shore,
Where the winds that blew from her own land nightly
Might wail round her grave through the wild rocks hoar.
So they lifted her lightly at dead of night,
And bore her down by the long torch-light—
—Down to the deep-mouth'd bay's black brim,
Where the pale priests, all white-stoled and dim,
Lifted the cross and chaunted the hymn,
That her soul might have peace when her bones were dust,
And her name be written among the Just.
There, under that thorn-tree lone and lean
(A blighted life as her own had been),
With mattock and spade a grave was made,
Where they carved the cross, and they wrote her name,
And, returning each by the way'that he came,
Their task being o'er, in a month or more,
By night in the hall, and by day on the shore,
With never a thought of their buried dame,
And no heart of them sore for the days of yore,
They laugh'd and quaff'd, and quarrell'd and swore,
And all things became again the same
As all things had been before.