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Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

In the Old Churchyard at Fredericksburg

By Frederick Wadsworth Loring (1848–1871)

IN the old churchyard at Fredericksburg

A gravestone stands to-day,

Marking the place where a grave has been,

Though many and many a year has it seen

Since its tenant mouldered away.

And that quaintly carved old stone

Tells its simple tale to all:—

“Here lies a bearer of the pall

At the funeral of Shakespeare.”

There in the churchyard at Fredericksburg

I wandered all alone,

Thinking sadly on empty fame,

How the great dead are but a name,—

To few are they really known.

Then upon this battered stone

My listless eye did fall,

Where lay the bearer of the pall

At the funeral of Shakespeare.

Then in the churchyard at Fredericksburg

It seemed as though the air

Were peopled with phantoms that swept by,

Flitting along before my eye,

So sad, so sweet, so fair;

Hovering about this stone,

By some strange spirit’s call,

Where lay a bearer of the pall

At the funeral of Shakespeare.

For in the churchyard at Fredericksburg

Juliet seemed to love,

Hamlet mused, and the old Lear fell,

Beatrice laughed, and Ariel

Gleamed through the skies above,

As here, beneath this stone,

Lay in his narrow hall

He who before had borne the pall

At the funeral of Shakespeare.

And I left the old churchyard at Fredericksburg;

Still did the tall grass wave,

With a strange and beautiful grace,

Over the sad and lonely place,

Where hidden lay the grave;

And still did the quaint old stone

Tell its wonderful tale to all:—

“Here lies a bearer of the pall

At the funeral of Shakespeare.”