Page:Interesting history of Robert Burns (1).pdf/24

Rh hood, and many from great distances. The multitude,” says an eye-witness who accompanied Burns to the grave, “went step by step with the chief mourners. They might amount to ten or twelve thousand. Not a word was heard, It was an impressive and mournful sight to see men of all ranks, and persuasions, and opinions, mingling as brothers, and stepping side by side down the streets of Dumfries with the remains of him who had sung of their loves and joys, and domestic endearments, with a truth and a tenderness which none perhaps have since equalled.—I found myself at the brink of the poet’s grave. The earth was heaped up, the green sod laid over him, and the multitude stood gazing on the grave for some minutes’ space, and then melted silently away.”

A costly mausoleum has since been erected to the memory of the poet, on the highest point of ground in the church yard, and thither the remains of Burns were solemnly transferred on the 5th June 1815.