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Title: The Two Round Spaces on the Tombstone
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge [
More Titles by Coleridge]
The Devil believes that the Lord will come,
Stealing a march without beat of drum,
About the same time that he came last
On an old Christmas-day in a snowy blast:
Till he bids the trump sound neither body nor soul stirs
For the dead men's heads have slipt under their bolsters.
Ho! ho! brother Bard, in our churchyard
Both beds and bolsters are soft and green;
Save one alone, and that's of stone,
And under it lies a Counsellor keen.
This tomb would be square, if it were not too long;
And 'tis rail'd round with iron, tall, spear-like, and strong.
This fellow from Aberdeen hither did skip
With a waxy face and a blubber lip,
And a black tooth in front to show in part
What was the colour of his whole heart.
This Counsellor sweet,
This Scotchman complete
(The Devil scotch him for a snake!),
I trust he lies in his grave awake.
On the sixth of January,
When all around is white with snow
As a Cheshire yeoman's dairy,
Brother Bard, ho! ho! believe it, or no,
On that stone tomb to you I'll show
After sunset, and before cock-crow,
Two round spaces clear of snow.
I swear by our Knight and his forefathers' souls,
That in size and shape they are just like the holes
In the large house of privity
Of that ancient family.
On those two places clear of snow
There have sat in the night for an hour or so,
Before sunrise, and after cock-crow
(He hicking his heels, she cursing her corns,
All to the tune of the wind in their horns),
The Devil and his Grannam,
With the snow-drift to fan 'em;
Expecting and hoping the trumpet to blow;
For they are cock-sure of the fellow below!
1800.
-THE END-
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem: The Two Round Spaces on the Tombstone
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