Sir Aglovaile through the churchyard rode; _Sing, All alone I lie:_ Little recked he where’er he yode, _All alone, up in the sky_. Swerved his courser, and plunged with fear _All alone I lie:_ His cry might have wakened the dead men near, _All alone, up in the sky_. The very dead that lay at his feet, Lapt in the mouldy winding-sheet. But he curbed him and spurred him, until he stood Still in his place, like a horse of wood, With nostrils uplift, and eyes wide and wan; But the sweat in streams from his fetlocks ran. A ghost grew out of the shadowy air, And sat in the midst of her moony hair. In her gleamy hair she sat and wept; In the dreamful moon they lay and slept; The shadows above, and the bodies below, Lay and slept in the moonbeams slow. And she sang, like the moan of an autumn wind Over the stubble left behind: _Alas, how easily things go wrong! A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again. Alas, how hardly things go right! ‘Tis hard to watch on a summer night, For the sigh will come and the kiss will stay, And the summer night is a winter day._ “Oh, lovely ghosts my heart is woes To see thee weeping and wailing so. Oh, lovely ghost,” said the fearless knight, “Can the sword of a warrior set it right? Or prayer of bedesman, praying mild, As a cup of water a feverish child, Sooth thee at last, in dreamless mood To sleep the sleep a dead lady should? Thine eyes they fill me with longing sore, As if I had known thee for evermore. Oh, lovely ghost, I could leave the day To sit with thee in the moon away If thou wouldst trust me, and lay thy head To rest on a bosom that is not dead.” The lady sprang up with a strange ghost-cry, And she flung her white ghost-arms on high: And she laughed a laugh that was not gay, And it lengthened out till it died away; And the dead beneath turned and moaned, And the yew-trees above they shuddered and groaned. “Will he love me twice with a love that is vain? Will he kill the poor ghost yet again? I thought thou wert good; but I said, and wept: ‘Can I have dreamed who have not slept?’ And I knew, alas! or ever I would, Whether I dreamed, or thou wert good. When my baby died, my brain grew wild. I awoke, and found I was with my child.” “If thou art the ghost of my Adelaide, How is it? Thou wert but a village maid, And thou seemest an angel lady white, Though thin, and wan, and past delight.” The lady smiled a flickering smile, And she pressed her temples hard the while. “Thou seest that Death for a woman can Do more than knighthood for a man.” “But show me the child thou callest mine, Is she out to-night in the ghost’s sunshine?” “In St. Peter’s Church she is playing on, At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John. When the moonbeams right through the window go, Where the twelve are standing in glorious show, She says the rest of them do not stir, But one comes down to play with her.