Stirring Science Stories/February 1941/Old Trinity Churchyard

by Abraham Grace Merritt

Old Trinity Churchyard

(5 a. m. Spring)

by A. Merritt

 

A lonely graveyard lies, between high walk,
Death’s quiet eddy off the roaring mart,
An oasis of peace, forgot, apart,
With muted strings the clamor on it falls;
And ghostly mists at dawn drop down like palls,
Lithe bodies creep and slip into its heart;
Half-seen; half-hid; across the mounds they dart.
Behold! On Beauty’s grave a gaunt cat sprawls!
Beside some sage’s stone their lusts are fed—
They stalk each other through the ragged grass;
Snakelike they crawl where heroes long have lain;
With playful paw they pat the mouldering dead.
Grotesques that writhe and wail a devilish Mass—
Thoughts, life-clothed; sent forth by some dead brain!