Cremation Sentiments.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 248, 11 August 1874, Page 7

Cremation Sentiments.

Motto for cremationists— De mortuis nil nisi burn'em. A.D. 1900.—Scene before a cremation undertaker's shop :—Small boy : "I say, sir, is clad done yet ? If he is, please put his ashes in this 'ere tin kettle." A cremationist asks would it bfe pnpleasint to receive a despatch something like this some day : —" Dear Mother, —William died to-day, Ashes by mail.—Yours ia sorrow, John Smith." This world is all a fleeting show ; How sweet from it to pass, To vanish up the chimney as Carbonic acid gas! Don't lay me on the river bank, Amid the fragrant flowers, Nor where the grass is watered by The early summer showers ; But put me in the kitchen range, And open wide the damper, And then my vaporous remains Can up the chimney scamper.

THE MAIDEN'S LAST FAREWELL.

IN THE DAYS OF CRBMATION. (From Harper's Magazine.) Then the night wore on, and we knew the worst, That the end of it all was nigh ; Three doctors they had from the very first-r-And what could one do but die ? " Oh, William !" she cried, " strew no blossoms of spring, For the new ' apparatus' might rust; But say that a handful of shavings you'll bring, And linger to see me combust. "Oh, promise me, love, by the fire-hole you'll watch, And when mourners and stokers convene, You will see that they light me some solemn, slow match, And warn them against kerosene. "It would cheer me to know, ere these rude breezes waft My essences far to the pole, That one whom I love will look to the draft, And have a fond eye on the coaL " Then promise me, love"—and her voice fainter grew—"While this body of mine calcifies, You will stand just as near as you can to;ihe flue, And gaze while my gases arise. " For Thomson—Sir Henry—has found out a way (Of his ' process' you've surely heard tell). And you burn like a parlour-match gently away, Nor even offend by a smell. " So none of the dainty may sniff in disdain, ' When my carbon floats up to the sky ; " And I'm sure, love, that you will never complain, Though an ash should blow into your eye. '"Now promise me, love," —and she murmured low—- " When the calcification is o'er, You will sit by my grave in the twilight glow— I mean by my furnace door : " Yes, promise me, love, while the seasons revolve On the noiseless axles, the years, You will visit the kiln where you saw me * resolve,' And leach my pale ashes with tears."