AN ELEGY

IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD,

By Gray.
DEATH,

A POEM,

By Bishop Porteus.

EVENING REFLECTIONS
Written in Westminster Abbey.

A

AND

SOLILOQUY

IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD,

By the Rev. Mr. Moore,

OF CORNWALL.

When self-esteem, or others' adulation,
Would cunningly persuade us we were something
Above the common level of our kind;

The Grave gainsays the smooth complexion'd flatt'ry

And with blunt truth acquaints us what we are.

Vide Blair's Grave.

Plymouth-Dock:

Printed and Sold by J. HEYDON, No. 80, James-Street.
(1804)

2805.

THE GRAVE

WHILST some affect the sun, and some the shade,

Some flee the city, some the hermitage;
Their aims as various as the roads they take
In journeying through life; the task be mine
To paint the gloomy horrors of the tomb:
Th' appointed place of rendezvous, where all
These trav'llers meet. Thy succours I implore,
Eternal King! whose potent arm sustains
'The keys of hell and death.

The Grave, dread thing! Men shiver when thou'rt nam'd: Nature appal'd

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 roll❜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 the night more irksome.
Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew,

A

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 scutchAnd 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,
Coxval 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.