Here is the great dormitory; here sits the little god Harpocrates, swinging on the lotos-leaf, his finger on his lips.
"No noyse here
But the toning of a teare."
Thousands possess the earth in peace. Are not Spurius Cassius and the Gracchi vindicated19, when the Agrarian20 law prevails at last?
How paltry21 a thing is a monument to the dead, save as expressing the affection of survivors22!Cannot the liberal soil absorb, without comment, the vast number of lives so sadly inessential to the world's growth and beauty? It must needs forever be placarded to the stranger, who would fain not be critical concerning the failings of these old hearts, where John Smith lies. It is not the chisel23 which keeps a memory alive. An inscription24 is superfluous25 for him whose deeds are graven in the book of life. Many another, who has but elbowed his way selfishly through the world, is laid under all the figures of rhetoric26, and is beholden to nothing better than an obelisk27 to speak him fair. "To be but pyramidally extant," says Sir Thomas Browne, "is a fallacy in duration." A monument, "a stone to a bone," shows the terminus of the corporeal28 journey, and serves merely to mark the gateway29 through which something perishable30, that was dear, has passed away.
Think of the gloomy, pessimistic habit of the Puritan colonists31, surmounting32 every grave with a grinning skull33, in tracery, when the benighted34 pagans, ages before, crushed out the material aspects of death beneath chaplets of roses, amaranth, and myrtle; imagery of the liberated35 insect, leaping to the sun with impetuous wings; poesy full of hopefulness and cheer; and the symbolic36 figure of an inverted37 torch over the burial pile! It might disparage38 the acrid39 sanctity of the forefathers40 to ask which of the two seemed worthiest41 to inherit immortality42.
Cotton Mather, after his whimsical fashion, pronounces it as the best eulogy43 of Ralph Partridge, the first shepherd of the old Duxborough flock, that being distressed44 at home by the ecclesiastical setters, he had no defence, neither beak45 nor claw, but flight over the ocean; that now being a bird of Paradise, it may be written of him, that he had the loftiness of the eagle and the innocency46 of the dove. His epitaph is: AVOLAVIT.
The most exquisite47 epitaph I ever saw was one of an infant of German extraction, who died, at the notable age of sixteen months: "Beloved and respected by all who knew him." Wellnigh as pompous48 and as plausible49 is an obituary50 in favor of a similar lambkin, yet to be deciphered at Copp's Hill: "He bore a Lingering sicknesse with-134- Patience, and met ye King of Terrors with a Smile." One Abigail Dudley sleeps in a New England village under a white stone, professionally indicative "of her moral character;" a widow droops51 in effigy52 over a Plymouth tomb, and states in large capitals that she has lost "an agreeable companion." Near by is the harrowing script: "Father. Parted Below;" and its sequel a yard's length off: "Mother. United Above." It flashes across your brain like a revelation of Vandal atrocities53.
What wondrously54 sweet lines old English poets wrote over the graves of women and children! Think of Carew's "darling in an urn11;" of Ben Jonson's "Elizabeth;" of "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;" of Drummond's "Margaret;" of Herrick's "On a Maid," every word precious as a pearl; and of the wholly startling pathos55 wherewith one now without a name bewailed his friend:—
"If such goodness live 'mongst men,
Bring me it! I shall know then
She is come from Heaven again."
General Charles Lee, that sad Revolutionary rogue56, wrote in his last will and testament57: "I do earnestly desire that I may not be buried in any church or churchyard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist meeting-house; for since I have resided in this country, I have kept so much bad company while living that I do not choose to continue it when dead."
Of Roger Williams, who was also granted solitary58 sepulture, a strange tale is told. There was question, some years back, of transplanting him from his sequestered59 resting-place to a stately mausoleum. The diggers dug, and the beholders beheld—what? Not any received version of that which was he, but the roots of an adjacent apple-tree formed into a netted oval, indented60 with punctures61 not wholly unlike human features; parallel branches lying perpendicularly62 on either side; fibres intertwined over a central area; and lastly, two long sprouts63, knotted half-way down, and terminating in a pediform excrescence wonderful to see. It was plain, thought the savants of P., that the apple-tree had eaten of ancient Roger; now-136- who had eaten of the fruit of that apple-tree? Verily, "to what base uses may we return!"
It was said of old by the English Chrysostom: "A man shall read a sermon, the best and most passionate64 that ever was preached, will he but enter into the sepulchre of kings." Let a tourist go through Europe, from town to town, pausing in the porches of burial-grounds: shall he not touch the naked candor65 of governments and follow the hoary66 chronicle of ages backward with his Hebraic eye? To him, the graveyard1 moss67 that eats out the charactery of proud names, is a sage68 commentator69 on mundane70 fame; and the humble71 mound72 to which genius and virtue73 have lent their blessed association inspires him with precepts74 beyond all philosophy. For history is not a clear scroll75, but a palimpsest; and he who is versed76 only in the autography of his contemporaries misses half the opportunity and half the gladness of life.
The habit of providing for personal comfort anticipates an easy couch and a fair prospect77 for us at the end. How many men, from the royal-137- warriors78 of yore who willed their ashes to be carried into a far-away country, have chosen, and jealously guarded in thought, their to-morrow's place of rest? A superfluous care, when the unawaited waves of ocean have cradled thousands, and every battle-field opens to receive the staunch and strong! Even for the sake of mysterious beauty such as hath thy holy hill, Concordia! alert youth itself might harbor a not ungentle welcoming thought of death. Yet that head which is confident of quiet sleep is scarce solicitous79 of its pillow. One last assurance vibrates, like triumphant80 music, in ears impatient of much speech upon a text so sacred. "To live indeed," it echoes, "is to be again ourselves, which being not only a hope, but an evidence in noble believers, it is all one to lie in St. Innocent's churchyard as in the sands of Egypt: ready to be anything, in the ecstasy81 of being ever, and as content with six feet as with the moles82 of Adrianus."
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1 graveyard | |
n.坟场 | |
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2 graveyards | |
墓地( graveyard的名词复数 ); 垃圾场; 废物堆积处; 收容所 | |
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3 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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4 incompatible | |
adj.不相容的,不协调的,不相配的 | |
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5 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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6 impersonal | |
adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
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7 parody | |
n.打油诗文,诙谐的改编诗文,拙劣的模仿;v.拙劣模仿,作模仿诗文 | |
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8 antiquities | |
n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 );古迹;古人们;古代的风俗习惯 | |
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9 scotch | |
n.伤口,刻痕;苏格兰威士忌酒;v.粉碎,消灭,阻止;adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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10 granite | |
adj.花岗岩,花岗石 | |
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11 urn | |
n.(有座脚的)瓮;坟墓;骨灰瓮 | |
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12 slate | |
n.板岩,石板,石片,石板色,候选人名单;adj.暗蓝灰色的,含板岩的;vt.用石板覆盖,痛打,提名,预订 | |
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13 gaping | |
adj.口的;张口的;敞口的;多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 );张开,张大 | |
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14 cherubs | |
小天使,胖娃娃( cherub的名词复数 ) | |
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15 scythes | |
n.(长柄)大镰刀( scythe的名词复数 )v.(长柄)大镰刀( scythe的第三人称单数 ) | |
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16 memento | |
n.纪念品,令人回忆的东西 | |
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17 grassy | |
adj.盖满草的;长满草的 | |
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18 margin | |
n.页边空白;差额;余地,余裕;边,边缘 | |
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19 vindicated | |
v.澄清(某人/某事物)受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 );表明或证明(所争辩的事物)属实、正当、有效等;维护 | |
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20 agrarian | |
adj.土地的,农村的,农业的 | |
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21 paltry | |
adj.无价值的,微不足道的 | |
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22 survivors | |
幸存者,残存者,生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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23 chisel | |
n.凿子;v.用凿子刻,雕,凿 | |
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24 inscription | |
n.(尤指石块上的)刻印文字,铭文,碑文 | |
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25 superfluous | |
adj.过多的,过剩的,多余的 | |
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26 rhetoric | |
n.修辞学,浮夸之言语 | |
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27 obelisk | |
n.方尖塔 | |
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28 corporeal | |
adj.肉体的,身体的;物质的 | |
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29 gateway | |
n.大门口,出入口,途径,方法 | |
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30 perishable | |
adj.(尤指食物)易腐的,易坏的 | |
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31 colonists | |
n.殖民地开拓者,移民,殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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32 surmounting | |
战胜( surmount的现在分词 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
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33 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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34 benighted | |
adj.蒙昧的 | |
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35 liberated | |
a.无拘束的,放纵的 | |
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36 symbolic | |
adj.象征性的,符号的,象征主义的 | |
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37 inverted | |
adj.反向的,倒转的v.使倒置,使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38 disparage | |
v.贬抑,轻蔑 | |
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39 acrid | |
adj.辛辣的,尖刻的,刻薄的 | |
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40 forefathers | |
n.祖先,先人;祖先,祖宗( forefather的名词复数 );列祖列宗;前人 | |
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41 worthiest | |
应得某事物( worthy的最高级 ); 值得做某事; 可尊敬的; 有(某人或事物)的典型特征 | |
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42 immortality | |
n.不死,不朽 | |
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43 eulogy | |
n.颂词;颂扬 | |
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44 distressed | |
痛苦的 | |
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45 beak | |
n.鸟嘴,茶壶嘴,钩形鼻 | |
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46 innocency | |
无罪,洁白 | |
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47 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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48 pompous | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的;夸大的;豪华的 | |
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49 plausible | |
adj.似真实的,似乎有理的,似乎可信的 | |
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50 obituary | |
n.讣告,死亡公告;adj.死亡的 | |
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51 droops | |
弯曲或下垂,发蔫( droop的名词复数 ) | |
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52 effigy | |
n.肖像 | |
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53 atrocities | |
n.邪恶,暴行( atrocity的名词复数 );滔天大罪 | |
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54 wondrously | |
adv.惊奇地,非常,极其 | |
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55 pathos | |
n.哀婉,悲怆 | |
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56 rogue | |
n.流氓;v.游手好闲 | |
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57 testament | |
n.遗嘱;证明 | |
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58 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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59 sequestered | |
adj.扣押的;隐退的;幽静的;偏僻的v.使隔绝,使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 );扣押 | |
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60 indented | |
adj.锯齿状的,高低不平的;缩进排版 | |
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61 punctures | |
n.(尖物刺成的)小孔( puncture的名词复数 );(尤指)轮胎穿孔;(尤指皮肤上被刺破的)扎孔;刺伤v.在(某物)上穿孔( puncture的第三人称单数 );刺穿(某物);削弱(某人的傲气、信心等);泄某人的气 | |
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62 perpendicularly | |
adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
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63 sprouts | |
n.新芽,嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 );抽芽;出现;(使)涌现出 | |
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64 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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65 candor | |
n.坦白,率真 | |
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66 hoary | |
adj.古老的;鬓发斑白的 | |
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67 moss | |
n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
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68 sage | |
n.圣人,哲人;adj.贤明的,明智的 | |
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69 commentator | |
n.注释者,解说者;实况广播评论员 | |
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70 mundane | |
adj.平凡的;尘世的;宇宙的 | |
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71 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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72 mound | |
n.土墩,堤,小山;v.筑堤,用土堆防卫 | |
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73 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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74 precepts | |
n.规诫,戒律,箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
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75 scroll | |
n.卷轴,纸卷;(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
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76 versed | |
adj. 精通,熟练 | |
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77 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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78 warriors | |
武士,勇士,战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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79 solicitous | |
adj.热切的,挂念的 | |
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80 triumphant | |
adj.胜利的,成功的;狂欢的,喜悦的 | |
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81 ecstasy | |
n.狂喜,心醉神怡,入迷 | |
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82 moles | |
防波堤( mole的名词复数 ); 鼹鼠; 痣; 间谍 | |
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