Crawford Avalanche

EPITAPHY

I wandered through the city of the dead,
Where all around the marble shafts arise
To show where rest the forms whose lives have fled.
I read the epitaphs, and said: "What lies!
The men who sleep here were like other men;
They had their virtues, and their faults as well.
Perhaps the personage who chanced to pen
These glowing lines which of such goodness tell
In the deceased is very glad he's gone,
And doesn't care particularly where;
But had these words of praise inscribed upon
The monument because they sound so fair."
Thus thought I. Then I chanced to look around,
And noticed, at a new-made grave hard by,
An old man kneeling on the frozen ground.
His face looked sad: I thought I heard him sigh
Then a revulsion on my feelings came.
How cruel seemed my former sentiment!
My cheeks then tingled with a blush of shame
For my injustice I was penitent.
If man has faults, he has his virtues, too;
And, when he journeys to the unknown bourne
The memory of his goodness stays with you;
His faults are all forgotten, and you mourn
For him, and kneel beside his grave to pray,
As does this poor old man. And then I stopped
My thinking. He arose. I heard him say :
"I cannot find the quarter that I dropped!"
-Boston Post.