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212

IMITATED. A MONASTIC ELEGY.

Now silence in the woodlands reigns,
Whilst the pale Goddess of the night,
Shoots o'er the waters and the plains
A trembling and delusive light.
Illumin'd by her magic beams,
That steeple rears its solemn head,
The shadowed turf a mantle seems,
Spread o'er the mansions of the dead.
Singing her mortuary dirge,
There sits the owl till break of day,
Responsive, through the cloister'd verge,
Winds howl and drive the bat away.
213

There musing Fancy takes her stand,
The child of Genius and of Spleen,
And waves her visionary wand,
To realize her pictur'd scene.
She calls Gray's spirit from the tomb,
To take his mournful midnight round,
And sees him gliding through the gloom,
Within these favourite precincts bound.
Pursuing with her brain-mock'd eye
The circling gleam that marks his way,
And hears his lengthen'd parting sigh,
Returning to his bed of clay.
With many a love-lost maid and swain
There lies the cemetery bard,
There shall the Muse of sorrow reign
Till corn shall grow in Paul's Church-yard.
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