Graveyard Poetry: First Post

One of the earliest Graveyard Poems was Thomas Parnell's Night-Piece on Death, published posthumously in 1722. I'll be looking at the whole thing in depth over the next few days. Here are the first eight lines:

     By the blue Tapers trembling Light,
     No more I waste the wakeful Night,
     Intent with endless view to pore
     The Schoolmen and the Sages o'er:
     Their Books from Wisdom widely stray,        5
     Or point at best the longest Way.
     I'll seek a readier Path, and go
     Where Wisdom's surely taught below.

So far, fairly obvious. The first thing to notice is that the writing does not follow modern rules for capitalization or punctuation. Going forward we will also see irregular spellings and archaic vocabulary. Our narrator has a candle, he's been studying, he's sick of reading the classics, thinks he's better off learning for himself. In the last line when he says "below," he means both down the front steps into the pitch black night, and below ground level, where the bodies are. Content warning: if death is a touchy subject for you, you should probably avoid the Graveyard School of Poetry.

More soon,
-Jon