Macabre anonymous manuscript nineteenth-century poem, apparently unpublished, from the papers of the Napier family of Tintinhull, a fine example of gothic verse, beginning 'Cold, Damp, Lone, | Lies the flesh that once so glowed'.

2pp., 16mo. On first leaf of bifolium of watermarked laid de la Rue paper. In good condition, on aged and lightly-creased paper. A fair copy, neatly written out in a delicate hand. The poem is 28 lines long, arranged in four 7-line stanzas. Short and effective, with no hint of Christian piety to lighten the unremitting gloom. The first stanza reads: 'Cold, Damp, Lone, | Lies the flesh that once so glowed, | And the blood that warmed it in the olden time | Blends with the Clay in a loathsome slime, | A worm in every bone | And in the skull a toad, | And can this [last word underlined] live again?' The third stanza begins: 'Fade, Fade, Fade, | Atoms that crawl the earth, | While your weak frame fails in its puny powers, | And the thing you call Soul, itself devours'. The poet concludes in utter hopelessness: 'Wail, Wail, Wail, | Like the surges that plash the shore | As them ye live but to moan - & are gone | And the next short lived waves are moaning on. | And the moaning shall not fail, | Till the Sea itself be no more | Why [last word underlined] live & wail again?' From the papers of the Napier family of Tintinhull, Somerset.