It was a lovely
evening. The early part of the day had been dark and showery, but
in the afternoon it had cleared up, and, though sullen clouds
still hung overhead, yet there was a broad tract of golden sky in
the west, from which the setting sun gleamed through the dripping
leaves and lit up all Nature into a melancholy smile. It seemed
like the parting hour of a good Christian smiling on the sins and
sorrows of the world, and giving, in the serenity of his decline,
an assurance that he will rise again in glory.
I had seated myself on a half-sunken tombstone, and was musing,
as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on past scenes
and early friends--on those who were distant and those who were
dead--and indulging in that kind of melancholy fancying which has
in it something sweeter even than pleasure. Every now and then
the stroke of a bell from the neighboring tower fell on my ear;
its tones were in unison with the scene, and, instead of jarring,
chimed in with my feelings; and it was some time before I
recollected that it must be tolling the knell of some new tenant
of the tomb.
Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the village green;
it wound slowly along a lane, was lost, and reappeared through
the breaks of the hedges, until it passed the place where I was
sitting.
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