Poem by William Wordsworth

Miserrimus

A Gravestone upon the Floor 
in the Cloisters of Worcester Cathedral

“MISERRIMUS!” and neither name nor date,
Prayer, text, or symbol, graven upon the stone;
Naught but that word assigned to the unknown,
That solitary word,—to separate
From all, and cast a cloud around the fate
Of him who lies beneath. Most wretched one,
Who chose his epitaph?—Himself alone
Could thus have dared the grave to agitate,
And claim among the dead this awful crown;
Nor doubt that he marked also for his own
Close to these cloistral steps a burial-place,
That every foot might fall with heavier tread,
Trampling upon his vileness. Stranger, pass
Softly!—To save the contrite, Jesus bled.

1. Calais
2. Composed on the Eve of the Marriage of a Friend in the Vale of Grasmere
3. On Approaching Home after a Tour in Scotland
4. To ———
5. Methought I Saw the Footsteps of a Throne

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