An old timer shares a tale and some philosophy with his tavern cronies. Just for fun! |
The Grave Digger’s Lunch Come sit a’side me, Bessie, with yore hair as red as Punch, an’ I’ll unwind some yarnin’ 'bout the grave digger’s lunch. (For if there be a lesson here there’s sure to be a bunch-- An’ such a little thing it were, some ol’ grave digger’s lunch.) I walked a'day, as well I do, An’ pass th’ bury-yard. Its stones in grass forgotten be, its path long hid an’ hard. I wend me way that very day, around, behind an’ low-- th’ narrow path an’ short way 'round where naught but deer may go. An’ I look beside th’ thicket where blue fire seize me eye! A sapphire or a diamond wink’t ‘neath the brambles by. So’s I leaves th’ path so narrow, through briers struggles I, to where th’ sun alert me to a treasure ‘neath d’rye. Now you gues’t it wern't no treasure, 'cos I’m as poor as you-- but hear me out a measure as me tale be almost through. For all’a cuts an' scratches, an’ thorns what combed m’hair, when I laid me hand upon it found an ol’ blue bott’l there. So sets me on a fallen log, an’ hold th’ glass to light. How blue an’ clear an’ ancient! Whole it been, all smooth an’ right. A hun’ert years or more, I gues’t it lay below th' hill-- where no one pass'd in all 'at time, an’ no one walks there, still. Above, th’ grave stones held their ground, an’ offered me th’ hunch--- Th' lonely bott’l’s all that stay’d from th’ last grave-digger’s lunch. He may’a dined on mutton, or some chicken wit’ some cheese, or wit’ a bit’a bread or fruit, as merry as he please! Or may naught but beer he takes, while he set amid the stones, an’ lay his shovel down a way, to rest among the bones. Maybe a pipe, or maybe none-- I fear we’ll ne’er know-- But last he throws th’ swig away an’ takes shovel up to go. A hun’ert years, like I ha’ said, Since he has plied his trade. But when the digger breath'd his last, Who then took up the spade? Does his lo’ phantom sit and dine, o’er his bones beneath a tree, an’ quench his thirst on other drink? A mystery, it be. I do not know, nor can I say. The bott’l was his own. A likely guess, as good as none I made, an’ took it home. It’s as I tell ya, Bessie, Truer words you’ll ne’er find. It ain’t as much as what we done, But what we leaves behind. |