‘John Brown is dead,’ said an aged friend and visitor in answer to my inquiry for the strong labourer.

‘Is he really dead?’ I asked, for it seemed impossible.

‘He is. He came home from his work in the evening as usual, and seemed to catch his foot in the threshold and fell forward on the floor. When they picked him up he was dead.’

from My Old Village by Richard Jefferies

His Immortality by Thomas Hardy

I saw a dead man’s finer part
Shining within each faithful heart
Of those bereft. Then said I: “This must be
His immortality.”

I looked there as the seasons wore,
And still his soul continuously upbore
Its life in theirs. But less its shine excelled
Than when I first beheld…

Lastly I ask – now old and chill –
If aught of him remain unperished still;
And find, in me alone, a feeble spark,
Dying amid the dark.