The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
The GravediggerBliss Carman (18611929)
O
And well his work is done.
With an equal grave for lord and knave,
He buries them every one.
He makes for the nearest shore;
And God, who sent him a thousand ship,
Will send him a thousand more;
But some he’ll save for a bleaching grave,
And shoulder them in to shore,—
Shoulder them in, shoulder them in,
Shoulder them in to shore.
Went out, and where are they?
In the port they made, they are delayed
With the ships of yesterday.
As the ships of long ago;
And the ships of France they led him a dance,
But he laid them all arow.
Is the sexton of the town;
For sure and swift, with a guiding lift,
He shovels the dead men down.
His honest graves are wide,
As well they know who sleep below
The dredge of the deepest tide.
And loud is the chorus skirled;
With the burly rote of his rumbling throat
He batters it down the world.
Where the ballads of eld were sung;
And merry enough is the burden rough,
But no man knows the tongue.
And wilful she must have been,
That she could bide at his gruesome side
When the first red dawn came in.
She greets to his border home;
And softer than sleep her hand’s first sweep
That beckons, and they come.
To handle the tallest mast;
From the royal barque to the slaver dark,
He buries them all at last.
He makes for the nearest shore;
And God, who sent him a thousand ship,
Will send him a thousand more;
But some he’ll save for a bleaching grave,
And shoulder them in to shore,—
Shoulder them in, shoulder them in,
Shoulder them in to shore.