Shakes off her wonted firmness. Ah! how dark

Thy long-extended realms, and rueful wastes !

Where nought but silence reigns, and night, dark

night,

Dark as was chaos ere the infant sun

Was roil'd together, or had tried its beams

Athwart the gloom profound! The sickly taper By glimm'ring through thy low-brow'd misty vaults,

Furr'd round with mouldy damps, and ropy slime,
Lets fall a supernumerary horror,

And only serves to make thy night more irksome.
Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew,
Cheerlees, unsocial plant! that loves to dwell
'Midst sculls and coffins, epitaphs and worms;
Where light-heel'd ghosts, and visionary shades,
Beneath the wan cold moon (as fame reports)
Embodied thick, perform their mystic rounds.
No other merriment, dull tree! is thine.

See yonder hallow'd fane! the pious work Of names once fam'd, now dubious, or forgot,

And buried 'midst the wreck of things which

were;

There lie interr'd the more illustrious dead.

The wind is up: hark! how it howls!_methinks,

Till now I never heard a sound so dreary.

Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul

bird,

Rook'd in the spire, screams loud; the gloomy

ailes

Black plaister'd, and hung round with shreds of

'scutch'ons,

And tatter'd coats of arms, send back the sound

Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults,

The mansions of the dead. Rous'd from their

slumbers,

In grim array the grizly spectres rise,

Grin horrible, and obstinately sullen,

Pass and repass, hush'd as the foot of night

Again! the screech owl shrieks: ungracious

sound!

I'll hear no more; it make's one's blood run chill.

Quite round the pile, a row of rev'rend elms,

Coeval near with that all ragged shew,

Long lash'd by the rude winds :

some rift half.

down

Their branchless trunks: others so thin a-top

That scarce two crows could lodge in the same

tree.

Strange things, the neighbours say, have happen'd here:

Wild shrieks have issu'd from the hollow tombs; Dead men have come again and walk'd about; And the great bell has toll'd, unrung, untouch'd. Such tales' their cheer, at wake or gossiping, When it draws near to witching-time of night.

Oft in the lone church-yard at night I've seen,

By glimpse of moon-shine, chequ'ring thro' the

trees,

The school-boy, with his satchel in his hand,

Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,

And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,

(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown) That tell in homely phrase who lie below;

Sudden he starts! and hears, or thinks he hears,
The sound of something purring at his heels:
Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him,
Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows;

Who gather round, and wonder at the tale
Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,

That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand

O'er some new-open'd grave; and, strange to

tell!

Evanishes at crowing of the cock.

The new-made widow too I 've sometimes

spied,

Sad sight! slow moving o'er the prostrate dead: Listless she crawls along in doleful black,

While bursts of sorrow gush from either eye,

Fast falling down her now untasted cheek.
Prone on the lonely grave of the dear man
She drops; while busy meddling memory,
In barbarous succession, musters up

The past endearments of their softer hours,
Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks
She sees him, and indulging the fond thought,
Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf,
Nor heeds the passenger who looks that way.

Invidious Grave! how dost thou rend in sunder Whom love has knit, and sympathy made one! A tie more stubborn far than nature's band.

Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!