THE SONGS OF " ROOKWOOD." 59 



" And saying so, with heavy blow the lid he shattered wide, 

 And pale with fright, a ghastly sight that Sexton gray espied, 

 A miserable sight it was, that loathsome corpse to see, 

 The last, last, dreary, darksome stage of fallen humanity. 



" Though all was gone save reeky bone, a green and grisly heap, 

 With scarce a trace of fleshly face, strange posture did it keep. 

 The hands were clench'd, the teeth were wrench'd, as if the wretch had 



risen, 

 E'en after death had ta'en his breath, to strive and burst his prison. 



" The neck was bent, the nails were rent, no limb or joint was straight; 

 Together glued, with blood imbued, black and coagulate. 

 And as the Sexton stooped him down, to lift the coffin plank, 

 His fingers were defiled all o'er with slimy substance dank. 



" ' Ah, well-a-day !' that Sexton gray unto himself did cry, 



' Full well I see how Fate's decree foredoomed this wretch to die ; 

 A living man, a breathing man, within the coffin thrust, 

 Alack ! alack ! the agony ere he returned to dust.' 



" A vision drear did then appear unto that Sexton's eyes ; 



Like that poor wight before him straight he in a coffin lies. 

 FHe lieth in a trance within that coffin close and fast ; 

 Yet though he sleepeth now, he feels he shall awake at last. 



The coffin then, by reverend men, is borne with footstep slow, 

 Where tapers shine before the shrine where breaths the requiem low, 

 And for the dead the prayer is said, for the soul that is not flown, 

 Then all is drown'd in hollow sound, the earth is o'eV him thrown. 



" He draweth breath he wakes from death to life more horrible, 

 To agony ! such agony ! no living tongue may tell. 

 Die ! die ! he must, that wretched one ! he struggles; strives in vain ; 

 No more heaven's light, nor sunshine bright, shall he behold again. 



" ' Gramercy, Lord !' the Sexton roar'd, awakening suddenly, 

 ' If this be dream, yet doth it seem most dreadful so to die. 

 Oh, cast my body in the sea ! or hurl it on the shore ! 

 But nail me not in coffin fast no grave wi'l I dig more.' " 



Is not this of the earth, earthly of the grave, gravelike ? In the 

 same vein is the " Mandrake." It has all the profundity of Sir 

 Thomas Brown combined with the melodiousness of Shelley. We 

 could fancy it was a match of Webster, whom the. author has well 

 placed at the head of our elder dramatists. 



"THE MANDRAKE.* 



"The Mandrake grows 'neath the gallows-tree, 

 And rank and green are its leaves to see ; 

 Green and rank, as the grass that waves 

 Over the unctuous earth of graves. 



* " The imaginary malignant and fatal influence of this plant is frequently al- 

 luded to by our elder dramatists ; and with one of the greatest of them, Webster, 

 (as might be expected from a charnel muse, that revels like a ghoul in graves 

 and sepulchres, and rakes up hideous and revolting lore,) it is an especial fa- 

 vourite for illustration. But none have plunged so deeply into the disquisition 

 of the suppositious virtues of the Mandrake, as the learned and profound Sir 



