St Michael's Graveyard

Imagine the gold of a summer evening, pools of shadow behind yew trees and the smell of grass and meadowsweet. Song thrushes perch on high branches and sing to the lowering sun. But the sun goes down and the screech owl and flitting bats come to haunt the darkness. But who else wanders here after sunset?

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (excerpt)

Thomas Gray

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save from that yonder ivy mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as wandering near her secret bower
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath these rugged elms, that yew tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.