Classic Poem

" BURY me, " the bishop said,
" Close to my geranium bed;
Lay me near the gentle birch.
It is lonely in the church,
And its vaults are damp and chill!
Noble men sleep there, but still
House me in the friendly grass!
Let the linnets sing my mass! "

Dying Swithin had his whim
And the green sod covered him.

Then what holy celebrations
And what rapturous adorations,
Joy no worldly pen may paint —
Swithin had been made a saint!
Yet the monks forgot that he
Craved for blossom, bird and bee,
And, communing round his tomb,
Vowed its narrow earthen room
Was unworthy one whose star
Shone in Peter's calendar.
" Who, " they asked, " when we are gone
Will protect this sacred lawn?
What if time's irreverent gust
Should disperse his holy dust? "
Troubled by a blackbird's whistle,
Vexed by an invading thistle,
They resolved to move his bones
To the chaste cathedral stones.

But the clouds grew black and thick
When they lifted spade and pick,
And they feared that they had blundered
By the way it poured and thundered.
Quoth the abbot: " Thus, I deem,
Swithin shows us we blaspheme!
He was fond of wind and rain;
Let him in their clasp remain! "
Forty days the heavens wept,
But St. Swithin smiled and slept.