31

To reason, and on reason build resolve That column of true majesty in manAssist me: I will thank you in the grave; The grave, your kingdom; there this frame shall fall

A victim sacred to your dreary shrine. But what are ye? Thou who didst put to flight

35 Primeval Silence, when the morning stars, Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball; O Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck

That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul;

My soul which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,

40 As misers to their gold, while others rest. Through this opaque of nature and of

ROBERT BLAIR (1699-1746)

From THE GRAVE

While some affect the sun, and some the shade,

Some flee the city, some the hermitage, Their aims as various as the roads they

take

forgot,

(Coeval near with that) all ragged show, Long lashed 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 neighbors say, have happened here:_

50 Wild shrieks have issued from the hollow tombs;

Dead men have come again, and walked about;

And the great bell has tolled, unrung, untouched.

(Such tales their cheer, at wake or gossiping,

When it draws near the witching time of night.)

55

Oft in the lone church-yard at night I've seen,

By glimpse of moonshine chequering through the trees,

The school-boy, with his satchel in his hand,

which were;

30

There lie interred 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,

And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,

60

(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)

That tell in homely phrase who lie below. Sudden he starts, and hears, or thinks he

hears,

1 cowering.