ROSE AYLMER

  Ah, what avails the sceptred race, 
    Ah, what the form divine! 
  What every virtue, every grace! 
    Rose Aylmer, all were thine!

  Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes 
    May weep, but never see, 
  A night of memories and sighs 
    I consecrate to thee.

One curious task which I set myself in Calcutta was to find Rose Aylmer's grave, for it was there that, in 1800, the mortal part of the lady whom Landor immortalised was buried. But I tried in vain. I walked for hours amid the sombre pyramidal tombs beneath which the Calcutta English used to be laid, among them, in 1815, Thackeray's father, but I found no trace of her whom I sought. I have seen many famous cemeteries, all depressing, from Kensal Green to Genoa, from Rock Creek to Montmartre, but none can approach in its forlorn melancholy the tract of stained and crumbling sarcophagi packed so close as almost to touch each other, in the burial ground off Rawdon Street and Park Street. Let no one establish a monument of cement over me. Any material rather than that!