To-night on holy Saturday
The weary ghost came back,
And laid his hand upon my brow,
And whispered me, "Alack!
There sits no angel by the tomb,
The Sepulchre is black."
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Conqueror Worm.
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
—— Ulalume.
And we passed to the end of a vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb—
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said—"What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of that legended tomb?"
She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume—
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume."
She never doubts but she always wonders. Again and again in imagination she crosses the bridge of death and explores the farther shore. Her ghosts come back with familiar forms, familiar sensations, and familiar words.—Elisabeth Luther Cary.
—— A Chilly Night.
I looked and saw the ghosts
Dotting plain and mound.
They stood in the blank moonlight
But no shadow lay on the ground.
They spoke without a voice
And they leaped without a sound.
—— Goblin Market.