Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould,

The chapel vault, or charnel.

Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress

Of ev'ry step so many echoes blended,

The mind, with dark misgivings, fear'd to guess

How many feet ascended.

The tempest with its spoils had drifted in,

Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted,

As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin,

With leaves that rankly rotted.