Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE OLD GHOST by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES

Poet Analysis

First Line: OVER THE WATER AN OLD GHOST STRODE
Last Line: AT HIS YEARNING DESIRE AND AGONY.
Subject(s): DEATH; DESIRE; GHOSTS; GRIEF; LONGING; SEA; SUPERNATURAL; DEAD, THE; SORROW; SADNESS; OCEAN;

OVER the water an old ghost strode
To a churchyard on the shore,
And over him the waters had flowed
A thousand years or more,
And pale and wan and weary
Looked never a sprite as he;
For it's lonely and it's dreary
The ghost of a body to be
That has mouldered away in the sea.

Over the billows the old ghost stepped,
And the winds in mockery sung;
For the bodiless ghost would fain have wept
Over the maiden that lay so young
'Mong the thistles and toadstools so hoary.
And he begged of the waves a tear,
But they shook upwards their moonlight glory,
And the shark looked on with a sneer
At his yearning desire and agony.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net