The Rattling Cortege

She had watched, and often,
death's rattling cortege,
visioned her own going, softer,
in a more romantic age,
 
and, as a stranger in the chapel,
her neighbors remarked,
" How strange, & what a marvel,
her face, unblemished, unmarked "
 
As the smoke from the long black chimney
(as they sang of remembrance and love)
rose, fusing her fuming body,
with the clouds, above.