When nights last hours like haunting spirits creepWith listning terrors round the couch of sleep
& midnight brooding with its deepest dye
Seizes on fear with dismal sympathy
I dreamd a dream of somthing kin to fate
Which superst[it]ions blackest thoughts create
Something half natural to the grave that seems
Which deaths long trance of slumber aptly dreams
A dream of staggering horrors & of dread
Whose shadows lingerd when the dream had fled
Clinging to memory with their gloomy view
Till doubt & fancy half believd it true
That time was come or seemd as it was come
When death no longer makes the grave its home
When waking spirits leave their earthly rest
To mix forever with the damnd or blest
When years in drowsey thousands counted bye
Then hung on minutes with their destiny
When life in terror drops its draining glass
& all thats mortal like to shadows pass
As neath approaching tempests sinks the sun
When time shall leave eternity begun
Life swoond in terror at that hours dread birth
& as in ague shook the fearful earth
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