Robert Blair (1699-1746)

from THE GRAVE (1743)

The house appointed for all living.

JOB, xxx. 23

[The poem (767 lines) loosely falls into three parts: (1) ll. 1-110, setting and opening

reflections; (2) ll. 111-368, homily on the vanity of human wishes, with copious

illustrations; (3) ll. 369-767, the terror of death and the grave and the consolation

of the Resurrection. ]

Whilst 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,

The appointed place of rendezvous, where all

These travellers 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 named; Nature, appalled, [10]

Shakes off her wonted firmness. Ah! how dark

Thy long-extended realms and rueful wastes,

Where naught but silence reigns, and night, dark night,

Dark as was chaos ere the infant sun

Was rolled together, or had tried his beams

Athwart the gloom profound! The sickly taper

By glimmering through thy low-browed misty vaults

(Furred round with mouldy damps and ropy slime)

Lets fall a supernumerary horror,

And only serves to make thy night more irksome. [20]

Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew,

Cheerless, unsocial plant! that loves to dwell

Midst skulls and cofffins, epitaphs and worms;

Where light-heeled 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.

See yonder hallowed fane--the pious work

Of names once famed, now dubious or forgot,

And buried midst the wreck of things 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,

Rooked in the spire, screams loud; the gloomy aisles,

Black-plastered, and hung round with shreds of 'scutcheons

And tattered coats of arms, send back the sound

Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults,

The mansions of the dead. Roused from their slumbers,

In grim array the grisly spectres rise, [40]

Grin horrible, and obstinately sullen

Pass and repass, hushed as the foot of night.

Again the screech-owl shrieks--ungracious sound!

I'll hear no more; it makes one's blood run chill.

Quite round the pile, a row of reverend elms

(Coeval near with that) all ragged show,

Long lashed by the rude winds; some rift half down

Their branchless trunks, others so thin at top

That scarce two crows could lodge in the same tree.

Strange things, the neighbours 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 to witching time of night.)

Oft in the lone churchyard at night I've seen,

By glimpse of moonshine checkering through the trees,

The schoolboy, with his satchel in his hand,

Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,

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 . . . .