Arkansas State Gazette

The Grave.

Oh! the grave, the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regret and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that ever he should have warred with poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him! But the grave of those we loved—what a place for meditation! There it is we call up in long review, the whole history of gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheard in the daily intercourse of intimacy. Then it is we dwell upon the tenderness of the parting scene, the bed of death with all its stifled grief, its noiseless attendants, its mute watchful assiduities; the last testimonies of expiring love; the feeble, fluttering, thrilling, Oh! how thrilling is the grasp, the last fond look of the glazing eye; turned upon us even from the threshold of existence; the faint, faltering, struggling in death to give us more assurance of affection. Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience, of past endearment unregarded of that departed being, who never, never can return to be soothed by contrition. If thou art a child and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband and hast ever caused the bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth, if thou art a friend, and hast wronged by thought, by word or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thine, if thou art a lover and hast ever given one unremitting pang to the true heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet, then be sure that every unkind look, every ungrateful word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul, then be sure thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant, pour the unavailing tear beside the untrodden mound, and utter the unheard groan, and unavailing.

[Washington Irving.]