Read "The Levelled Churchyard" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"O PASSENGER, pray list and catch / Our sighs and piteous groans, / Half stifled in this jumbled patch / Of wrenched memorial stones!
"We late-lamented, resting here, / Are mixed to human jam, / And each to each exclaims in fear, / ‘I know not which I am!'
"The wicked people have annexed / The verses on the good; / A roaring drunkard sports the text / Teetotal Tommy should!
"Where we are huddled none can trace, / And if our names remain, / They pave some path or p-ing place / Where we have never lain!
"There's not a modest maiden elf / But dreads the final Trumpet, / Lest half of her should rise herself, / And half some local strumpet!
"From restorations of Thy fane, / From smoothings of Thy sward, / From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane / Deliver us O Lord! Amen! "