FAINT from the bell the ghastly echoes fall, That grates within the gray cathedral tower; Let me not enter through the portal tall, Lest the strange spirit of the moonless hour Should give a life to those pale people, who Lie in their fretted niches, two and two, Each with his head on pillowy stone reposed, And his hands lifted, and his eyelids closed. From many a mouldering oriel, as to flout, Its pale, grave brow of ivy-tressed stone, Comes the incongruous laugh, and revel shout— Above, some solitary casement, thrown Wide open to the wavering night wind, Admits its chill, so deathful, yet so kind, Unto the fevered brow and fiery eye Of one, whose night hour passeth sleeplessly. Ye melancholy chambers! I could shun The darkness of your silence, with such fear, As places where slow murder had been done. How many noble spirits have died here, Withering away in yearnings to aspire, Gnawed by mocked hope—devoured by their own fire! Methinks the grave must feel a colder bed To spirits such as these, than unto common dead. |