Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was
a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance.
This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice
my entrance; because he was the only one who could not read,
and, therefore, was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall.
Whether any of the relatives of the seamen whose names
appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not;
but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery,
and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance
if not the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure
that here before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing
hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused
the old wounds to bleed afresh.
Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass;
who standing among flowers can say--here, here lies my beloved;
ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these.
What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover
no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions!
What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines
that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections
to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave.
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