MOONLIGHT CHURCHYARD.
To die and go we know not whither,
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot.
Shakspeare.
Round thee, pure Moon, a ring of snowy clouds
Hover, like children round their mother dear
In silence and in joy, for ever near
The footsteps of her love. Within their shrouds,
Lonely, the slumbering dead encompass me!
Thy silver beams the mouldering abbey flout;
Black rails, memorial stones, are strew'd about;
And the leaves rustle on the holly tree.
Shadows mark out the undulating graves;
Tranquilly, tranquilly the departed lie!—
Time is an ocean, and mankind the waves
That reach the dim shores of Eternity;
Death strikes; and Silence, 'mid the evening gloom,
Sits spectre-like, the guardian of the tomb!
