APPARITION.
Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts.
Odyssey. HOMER. Trans. of POPE.
My people too were scared with eerie sounds,
A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls,
A noise of falling weights that never fell,
Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand,
Door-handles turned when none was at the door,
And bolted doors that opened of themselves;
And one betwixt the dark and light had seen
Her, bending by the cradle of her babe.
The Ring. A. TENNYSON.
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!
Cato, Act ii. Sc. 1. J. ADDISON.
Now it is the time of night,
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards.
Midsummer Night's Dream, iii, 2. SHAKESPEARE.