Chapter 40
chapter forty of i mary mclean by mary mclean this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by lynn thompson chapter forty the sleep of the dead to-morrow when i'm dead i want to rest awhile in my grave for i'm tired tired always my soul must go on as it has gone on up to now it has a long way to go and it has come a long way my soul first started on its journey somewhere in asia before the dawn of this civilization and it has gone on since through the centuries and through strange phases of body terrors of flesh and blood suffering long but it has gone some way on each space of the journey taking it nearer to the journey's end it is the dim felt memory of those journeys that heaps the tiredness on me now not only is my spirit tired through my spirit my hands are tired my knees are tired my drooping shoulders my thin feet my sensitive backbone when i lift my hand in the sunshine the weight of the yellow honeyed air bears down and down on it because i'm so tired
when i start to walk on stone pavements the ache of them is in my feet before i set foot on them because i'm so tired the pulse in my veins tires my blood as it beats my low voice though i speak but rarely it tires my throat my breath tires my chest the weight of my hair tires my forehead and temples my plain frocks tire my body to wear my swift trenchant thoughts tire my mind it is not the tiredness of effort though i strive to the limits of my strength every day it is not pain restful pain it is tired tiredness so when i'm dead i want to rest awhile in my grave it would rest me in the episcopal church they use a ritual of poetic beauty full of restful things one of them is the sleep of the dead the crucified nazarene slept three days but all others of us when we go down into our graves are to sleep until a judgment day judgment day is preposterous and evilly crude there's no judgment till each can judge himself simply and cruelly in the morning light but the sleep of the dead
the sleep of the dead its sound by itself without the thought is restful and the thought is restful i imagine me wrapped in a shroud of soft thin wool cloth of a pale colour laid in a plain wood coffin and my eyelids are closed and my tired feet are dead feet and my hands are folded on my breast and the coffin is nine feet down in the ground and the earth covers it upon that some green sod and above the deep blue sheltering sky and the clouds and the winds and the suns and moons and the days and nights and circling horizons those above my grave and my body laid at its length eyes closed hands folded down there resting my soul not yet gone but laid beside my body in the coffin resting might we lie like that resting resting for weeks months ages year after long year resting chapter forty
