| |
| FROM Christ-Church graves, across the way, | |
| A dismal, horrid place is found, | |
| Where rushing winds exert their sway, | |
| And Greenland winter chills the ground: | |
| No blossoms there are seen to bloom, | 5 |
| No sun pervades the dreary gloom! | |
| |
| The people of that stormy place | |
| In penance for some ancient crime | |
| Are held in a too narrow space, | |
| Like those beyond the bounds of time, | 10 |
| Who, darkened still, perceive no day, | |
| While seasons waste and moons decay. | |
| |
| Cold as the shade that wraps them round, | |
| This icy region prompts our fear; | |
| And he who treads this frozen ground | 15 |
| Shall curse the chance that brought him here,— | |
| The slippery mass predicts his fate, | |
| A broken arm, a wounded pate. | |
| |
| When August sheds his sultry beam, | |
| May Celia never find this place, | 20 |
| Nor see, upon the clouded stream, | |
| The fading summer in her face; | |
| And may I ne’er discover there | |
| The gray that mingles with my hair. | |
| |
| The watchman sad, whose drowsy call | 25 |
| Proclaims the hour forever fled, | |
| Avoids this path to Pluto’s hall; | |
| For who would wish to wake the dead!— | |
| Still let them sleep,—it is no crime,— | |
| They pay no tax to know the time. | 30 |
| |
| No coaches hence, in glittering pride, | |
| Convey their freight to take the air; | |
| No gods nor heroes here reside, | |
| Nor powdered beau, nor lady fair,— | |
| All, all to warmer regions flee, | 35 |
| And leave these glooms to Towne and me. | |
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