Chapter XVIII

The ship arrives, the "dear remains" are landed, and the burial is to take place.

It is something, worth the mourner's having, that he can stand on English ground where his friend has been laid, and know that the violet will spring from his ashes.

Laertes says of Ophelia,

"Lay her in the earth
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!"

A beautiful invitation follows to those, who are sometimes irreverent bearers:

"Come then, pure hands, and bear the head
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep,
And come, whatever loves to weep,
And hear the ritual of the dead."[18]

Even yet, before the grave is closed, he would like, as Elisha did on the Shunammite woman's child, to cast himself, and

"thro' his lips impart
The life that almost dies in me;"

but still he resolves to form the firmer resolution, and to submit; though meanwhile treasuring the look and words that are past and gone for ever.