The Bedman, Or Gravemaker.

Tread, sirs, as lightly as ye can
Upon the grave of this old man.
Twice forty, bating but one year
And thrice three weeks, he lived here.
Whom gentle fate translated hence
To a more happy residence.
Yet, reader, let me tell thee this,
Which from his ghost a promise is,
If here ye will some few tears shed,
He'll never haunt ye now he's dead.

Man may want land to live in; but for all
Nature finds out some place for burial.

If that my fate has now fulfill'd my year,
And so soon stopt my longer living here;
What was't, ye gods, a dying man to save,
But while he met with his paternal grave!
Though while we living 'bout the world do roam,
We love to rest in peaceful urns at home,
Where we may snug, and close together lie
By the dead bones of our dear ancestry.

Both you two have
Relation to the grave:
And where
The funeral-trump sounds, you are there,

I shall be made,
Ere long, a fleeting shade:
Pray, come
And do some honour to my tomb.

Do not deny
My last request; for I
Will be
Thankful to you, or friends, for me.

Go I must; when I am gone,
Write but this upon my stone:
Chaste I lived, without a wife,
That's the story of my life.
Strewings need none, every flower
Is in this word, bachelour.

Let not thy tombstone e'er be laid by me:
Nor let my hearse be wept upon by thee:
But let that instant when thou diest be known
The minute of mine expiration.
One knell be rung for both; and let one grave
To hold us two an endless honour have.