The Curate and the Corpse by Jean de La Fontaine

A dead man going slowly, sadly, / To occupy his last abode, / A curate by him, rather gladly, / Did holy service on the road. / Within a coach the dead was borne, / A robe around him duly worn, / Of which I wot he was not proud -- / That ghostly garment call'd a shroud. / In summer's blaze and winter's blast, / That robe is changeless -- 'tis the last. / The curate, with his priestly dress on, / Recited all the church's prayers, / The psalm, the verse, response, and lesson, / In fullest style of such affairs. / Sir Corpse, we beg you, do not fear / A lack of such things on your bier; / They'll give abundance every way, / Provided only that you pay. / The Reverend John Cabbagepate / Watch'd o'er the corpse as if it were / A treasure needing guardian care; / And all the while, his looks elate, / This language seem'd to hold: / 'The dead will pay so much in gold, / So much in lights of molten wax, / So much in other sorts of tax: ' / With all he hoped to buy a cask of wine, / The best which thereabouts produced the vine. / A pretty niece, on whom he doted, / And eke his chambermaid, should be promoted, / By being newly petticoated. / The coach upset, and dash'd to pieces, / Cut short these thoughts of wine and nieces! / There lay poor John with broken head, / Beneath the coffin of the dead! / His rich, parishioner in lead / Drew on the priest the doom / Of riding with him to the tomb!

The Pot of Milk,[1] and fate / Of Curate Cabbagepate, / As emblems, do but give / The history of most that live.[2]