The Grave, a Poem

W aitsr 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 tray 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 appall’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 his 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 thy night more irksome! Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew, Cheerless, unsocial plant! that loves to dwell ’Midst seulls 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.