The Old Ghost

by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (June 30, 1803 – January 26, 1849)

Over the water an old ghost strode

To a churchyard on the shore,

And over him the waters had flowed

A thousand years or more,

And pale and wan and weary

Looked never a sprite as he;

For it's lonely and it's dreary

The ghost of a body to be

That has mouldered away in the sea.

Over the billows the old ghost stepped,

And the winds in mockery sung;

For the bodiless ghost would fain have wept

Over the maiden that lay so young

'Mong the thistles and toadstools so hoary.

And he begged of the waves a tear,

But they shook upwards their moonlight glory,

And the shark looked on with a sneer

At his yearning desire and agony.