ALL SOULS' EVE.

Where the tombstones gray and browned,
And the broken roods around,
And the vespers' solemn sound,
Told an old church near;
I sat me in the eve,
And I let my fancy weave
Such a vision as I leave
With a frail pen here.

Methought I heard a trail
Like to slowly-falling hail
And the sadly-plaintive wail
Of a misty file of souls,
As they glided o'er the grass,
Sighing low: "Alas! alas!
How the laggard moments pass
In purgatorial doles!"

Through their garments' glancing sheen,
As if nothing were between,
Pierced the moon's benignant beam
To a grove of stunted pines;
In whose distant lightsome shade,
With their gilded coats arrayed,

Danced a fairy cavalcade,
To a fairy poet's rhymes.

Then a cloud obscured the moon,
And the fairy dance and rune
Faded down behind the gloom
Which along the upland fell,
And my ears could only hear,
In the church-yard lone and drear,
The tinkle soft and clear
Of the morning Mass's bell.
It eddied through the air,
And it seemed to call to prayer
All the waiting spirits there
Which the moon's beams showed,
But each tinkle sank to die
In a heart-distressing sigh,
And no worshippers drew nigh
With the penitential word.

Mute as statue, on each knoll
Stood a thin, transparent soul,
While the fresh breeze stole
From its long night's rest,
Till it bore upon its tongue,
Like a snatch of sacred song,
All the peopled graves among,
Ite Missa est!

Then a cry, as Angels raise
In an ecstasy of praise,
When the Godhead's glowing rays
To their eager sight is given,
Shook the consecrated ground,
And the souls it lost were found
From their venial sins unbound,
In the happy fields of heaven!