I stood at the hedge as a hearse went by
And passed me along the way;
The sun broke in through a silver sky
And scattered a golden ray.

Should I offer a prayer for the passing dead,
For the hearts going burdened by;
With a human pity, a catholic dread
Of the tear, the sorrow, and sigh?

I too knew grief and the burdened heart,
Some knowledge of pain was mine;
Should I bow my head for another's smart,
Should I make this simple sign?

So I wondered and thought as the hearse went by
With its poor dead corpse within;
But I turned aside to the opening sky —
'Such a feeling may once have been,

'But now' — for the impulse was gone, you see,
And death was no longer new;
'Like a fallen leaf from an autumn tree
He is dead; what is else to do?'

And there on the path as I turned around,
By the side of a thorn-tree root
An earthworm lay, crushed into the ground
By the heel of a passing boot.

Well, death and death; 't is an equal term
For the worm and the man to-day;
But I turned and buried the angle-worm
In a neighboring lump of clay.