But Dorchester is thine no more, its gallant pulse is still,
The wild cat prowls among its graves and screams the whippoorwill,
A mournful spell is on its homes, where solitude, supreme,
Still, coaching in her tangled woods, dreams one unbroken dream:
The cotter seeks a foreign home,—the cottage roof is down,
The ivy clambers all uncheck’d above the steeple’s crown;
And doubly gray, with grief and years, the old church tott’ring stands,
Ah! how unlike that holy home not built with human hands!
These ruins have their story, and, with a reverent fear,
I glide beneath the broken arch and through the passage drear;