Poem by Anonymous

The Pauper’s Drive

There’s a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot; 
To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot: 
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs, 
And hark to the dirge that the sad driver sings:
	“Rattle his bones over the stones;
	He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns!”

Oh! where are the mourners? alas! there are none; 
He has left not a gap in the world now he’s gone; 
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man. 
To the grave with his carcase, as fast as you can:
	“Rattle his bones over the stones;
	He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns!”

What a jolting and creaking, and splashing and din! 
The whip how it cracks! and the wheels how they spin; 
How the dirt, right and left, o’er the hedges is hurl’d! 
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world!
	“Rattle his bones over the stones;
	He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns!”

Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach 
To gentility, now that he’s stretch’d in a couch! 
He’s taking a drive in a carriage at last; 
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast. 
	“Rattle his bones over the stones;
	He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns!”

You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed. 
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid, 
And be joyful to think, when by death you’re laid low, 
You’ve a chance to the grave like a gemman to go.
	“Rattle his bones over the stones;
	He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns!”

But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad 
To think that a heart in humanity clad 
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end, 
And depart from the light without leaving a friend!
	Bear softly his bones over the stones;
	Though a pauper, he’s one whom his MAKER yet owns!

1. Lord Strafford’s Meditations in the Tower
2. The Cave of Pope
3. The Enchanted Island
4. Ettrick Banks
5. Sir Richard Whittington’s Advancement

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