Where Are the Wicked Folk Buried?

'Tell me, grey-haired sexton,' said I,
'Where in the field are the wicked folk laid?
I have wandered the quiet old graveyard through,
And studied the epitaphs, old and new,
But on monument, obelisk, pillar, or stone,
I read no evil that men have done.'


The old sexton stood by a grave newly made,
With his chin on his hand, his hand on a spade:
'Who is the judge when the soul takes its flight?
Who is the judge 'twixt the wrong and the right?
Which of us mortals shall dare to say
That our neighbour was wicked who died to-day?'


'In our journey through life, the farther we speed,
The better we learn that humility's need
Is charity's spirit that prompts us to find
Rather virtue than vice in the lives of our kind.'


'Therefore good deeds we record on these stones;
The evil men do, let it rest with their bones'
I have laboured as sexton this many a year,
But I never have buried a bad man here.'


-- From "Journal of the Association for the
Preservation of the Memorials of the
Dead in Ireland," Vol. 2, Part 1 (1895)