Old Time Heaved a Moldy Sigh

“Old Time heaved a moldy sigh from tomb and arch and vault; 

and gloomy shadows began to deepen in corners;

 and damps began to rise from green patches of stone; 

and jewels, cast upon the pavement of the nave 

from stained glass by the declining sun, 

began to perish. Within the grill-gate of the chancel, 

up the steps surmounted loomingly by the fast darkening organ, 

white robes could be dimly seen, and one feeble voice, 

rising and falling in a cracked monotonous mutter, 

could at intervals be faintly heard. In the free outer air, 

the river, the green pastures, and the brown arable lands, 

the teeming hills and dales, were reddened by the sunset: 

while the distant little windows in windmills and farm homesteads, 

shone, patches of bright beaten gold. In the Cathedral, 

all became gee, murky, and sepulchral, 

and the cracked monotonous mutter went on like a dying voice, 

until the organ and the choir burst forth, and drowned it in a sea of music. 

Then, the sea fell, and the dying voice made another feeble effort, 

and then the sea rose high, and beat its life out, 

and lashed the roof, and surged among the arches, 

and pierced the heights of the great tower; 

and then the sea was dry, and all was still.” 

~ Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood