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Some flee the city, some the hermitage; Their aims as various, as the roads they fake

In journeying thro' life;the task be mine,

To paint the gloomy horrours of the tomb
Th' appointed plate of rendezvous, where all,
These travellers meet. Thy succours implore,
Eternal king! whose potent arm sustains [thing!
The keys of Hell and Death.-The Grave, dread
Men shiver when thou 'rt named: Nature appall'd
Shakes off her wonted firmness.- -Ah! how dark
Thy long-extended realms, and rueful wastes!
Where nought but silence reigns, and night, dar
Dark as was chaos, ere the infant Sun [night,
Was roll'd together, or had try'd his beams
Athwart the gloom profound.The sickly taper,
By glimnin'ring thro' thy low-brow'd misty vaults,
(Furr'd round with mouldy damps, and ropy slime,)
Lets fall a supernumerary horrour,

And only serves to make thy night more irksome.
Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew,
Cheerless, 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)
Embody'd, thick, perform their mystic rounds,
No other merriment, dull tree! is thine.
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See yonder hallow'd fane; the pious work
Of names once fam'd, now dubious or forgot,
And bury'd 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 four
bird,

Rook'd in the spire, screamsloud; the gloomy aisles
Black plaster'd, and hung round with shreds of
'scutcheons,

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 la grim array the grisly spectres rise, [slumbers, Grin horrible, and, obstinately sullen, 5 Pass and repass, hush'd as the foot of night. Acain the screech-owl shrieks-ungracious sound! I'll hear no more; it make one's blood run chill, Quite round the pile, a row of reverend elms, (Coeval near with that) all ragged show,

Their branchless trunks; others so thin at top,
That scarce two crows can lodge in the same tree.
Strange things, the neighbours say, have happen'd
here;

Wild shrieks have issued 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 gossipping,
When it draws near to witching time of night.)-

Oft in the lone church yard at night I've seen,
By glimpse of moonshine chequering 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,

tell!

W

The new-made widow, too, I've sometimes 'spy'd, 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. S Prone on the lowly grave of the dear man She drops; whilst 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,
Sweetner of life, and solder of society,

I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved from me,
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.
Oft have I prov'd the labours of thy love,
And the warm efforts of the gentle heart,

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my

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Anxious to please.-Oh! when my friend and I
In some thick wood have wander'd heedless on,
Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down
Upon the sloping cowslip-cover'd bank,
Where the pure limpid stream has slid along
In grateful errours thro' the underwood,
Sweet murmuring; methought the shrill-tongu'd
Mended his song of love; the sooty blackbird
Mellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note:
The eglantine smell'd sweeter, and the rose
Assum'd a dye more deep; whilst ev'ry flower
Vy'd with its fellow-plant in luxury

[thrush

Of dress-Oh! then the longest summer's day
Seem'd too too much in haste; still the full heart ̧
Had not imparted half: 'twas happiness
Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed,
Not to return, how pinful the remembrance!
Dull Grave!-thou spoil'st the dance of youth-
ful blood,

Strik'st out the dimple from the cheek of mirth,
And ev'ry smirking feature from the face;
Branding our laughter with the name of madness.
Where are the jesters now? the men of health,
Complectionally pleasant? Where's the droll,
Whose ev'ry look and gesture was a joke
To clapping theatres and shouting crowds,
And made ev'n thick-lipp'd musing Melancholy
To gather up her face into a simile
Before she was aware? Ah! sullen now,
And dumb as the green turf that covers them.
Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war?
The Roman Cæsars, and the Grecian chiefs,
The boast of story? Where the hot brain'd youth,
Who the tiara at his pleasure tore

From kings of all the then discover'd globe,
And cry'd, forsooth, because his arm was ham-
And had not room enough to do its work? [per'd,
Alas! how slim, dishonourably slim,
And cram'd into a space we blush to name!
Proud Royalty! how alter'd in thy looks!
How blank thy features, and how wan thy hue!
Son of the Morning whither art thou gone?
Where hast thou hid thy many-spangled head,
And the majestic menace of thine eyes
Felt from afar? Pliant and powerless now,
SLike new-born infant wound up in his swathes,
Or victim tumbled flat upon its back,

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That throbs beneath the sacrificer's knife.
Mute, must thou bear the strife of little tongues,
And coward insults of the base-born crowd,
That grudge a privilege thou never hadst,
But only hop'd for in the peaceful grave,
Of being unmolested and alone.
Arabia's gums and odoriferous drugs,
And honours by the heralds duly paid,
In mode and form e'en to every scruple;
Oh! cruel irony! these come too late,
And only mock whom they were meant to honour.
Surely there's not a dungeon slave that's bury'd
In the highway, unshrouded and uncoffin'd,
But lies as soft, and sleeps as sound as he,
Sorry pre-eminence of high descent,
Above the vulgar born to rot in state.

And glittering in the sun; triumphant entries
Of conquerors, and coronation pomps,

In glory scarce exceed. Great cluts of people Retard th' unwieldy show: whilst from the casements,

And houses' tops, ranks behind ranks, close wedg'd,
Hang bellying o'er. But tell us why this waste,
Why this ado in earthing up a carcase
That's fall'n into disgrace, and in the nostril
Smells horrible?-Ye undertakers, tell us,
'Midst all the gorgeous figures you exhibit,
Why is the principal conceal'd, for which
You make this mighty stir?-Tis wisely done:
What would offend the eye in a good picture,
The painter casts discreetly into shades.

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Proud Lineage, now how little thou appear'st Below the envy of the private man! Honour, that meddlesome, officious ill, Pursues thee e'en to death; nor there stops short; Strange persecution! when the grave itself Is no protection from rude sufferance.

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Absurd to think to over-reach the Grave, And from the wreck of names to rescue ours. The best concerted schemes men lay for fame Die fast away; only themselves die faster. The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurell'd bard, Those bold insurancers of deathless fame, Supply their little feeble aids in vain. The tapering pyramid, th' Egyptian's pride, And wonder of the world, whose spiky top Has wounded the thick cloud, and long outliv'd The angry shaking of the winter's storm: Yet spent at last by th' injuries of Heaven, Shatter'd with age, and furrow'd o'er with years, The mystic cone with hieroglyphics crusted, At once gives way. Oh! lamentable sight! «The labour of whole ages tumbles down, A hideous and mishapen length of ruins. Sepulchral columns wrestle but in vain With all-subduing Time; her cank'ring hand With calm, delib'rate malice wasteth them: Worn on the edge of days, the brass consumes, The busto moulders, and the deep-cut marble, Unsteady to the steel, gives up its charge. Ambition, half convicted of her folly, Hangs down her head, and reddens at the tale.

Here all the mighty troublers of the Earth, Who swam to sov'reign rule thro' seas of blood; Th' oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains, Who ravag'd kingdoms, and laid empires waste, And, in a cruel wantonness of power,

Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up To want the rest; now, like a storm that's spent, Lie hush'd, and meanly sneak behind the covert. Vain thought! to hide them from the general

scoru

hat haunts and dogs them like an injured ghost Implacable. Here, too, the petty tyrant, Whose scant domains geographer ne'er notic'd, And well for neighbouring grounds, of arm as Who fix'd his iron talous on the poor, [short,

And grip'd them like some lordly beast of prey; Deaf to the forceful cries of gnawing Hanger,

And piteous plaintive voice of Misery; (As if a slave was not a shred of Nature, Of the same common nature with his lord;) Now tame and humble, like a child that's whipp'd, Shakes hands with dust, and calls the worin his kinsman;

Nor pleads his rank and birthright. Under ground,