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)
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 that 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 plaïster'd, and hung round with shreds of scutch-
And tatter'd coats of arms, send back the sound [eons
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 makes one's blood run chill.
Quite round the pile, a row of reverend elms,
Coæval near with all that 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 issued from the hollow tombs;
Dead men have come again and walk'd about;
And the great bell has toll'd, unrung, untouch'd.