A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets; As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist star Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear, All intellect, all sense, and as they please They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size, Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare.

For spirits when they please Can either sex assume, or both.

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!

I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

I look for ghosts; but none will force Their way to me; 'tis falsely said That even there was intercourse Between the living and the dead.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw.

My people too were scared with eerie sounds, A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls. A noise of falling weights that never fell, Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand, Door-handles turn'd when none was at the door, And bolted doors that open'd of themselves; And one betwixt the dark and light had seen Her, bending by the cradle of her babe.

Now it is the time of night That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the churchway paths to glide.

Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names.