In some parts of the country, also, the dead are carried to the
grave with the singing of psalms and hymns: a kind of triumph, "to
show," says Bourne, "that they have finished their course with joy,
and are become conquerors." This, I am informed, is observed in some
of the northern counties, particularly in Northumberland, and it has a
pleasing, though melancholy effect, to hear, of a still evening, in
some lonely country scene, the mournful melody of a funeral dirge
swelling from a distance, and to see the train slowly moving along the
landscape.
Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round
Thy harmlesse and unhaunted ground,
And as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffodill
And other flowers lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.
HERRICK.
There is also a solemn respect paid by the traveller to the passing
funeral in these sequestered places; for such spectacles, occurring
among the quiet abodes of nature, sink deep into the soul.
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