SAD NEWS TODAY:

Jeff Guinn informs us that our old sparring partner Robert Duquette passed away this weekend. May he find peace hence.

With pausing step, at night's refulgent noon,
Beneath the sparkling stars, and lucid moon,
Plung'd in the shade of some religious tower,
The slow bell counting the departed hour,
O'er gaping tombs where shed umbrageous Yews
On mouldering bones their cold unwholesome dews;
While low aerial voices whisper round,
And moondrawn spectres dance upon the ground;
Poetic MELANCHOLY loves to tread,
And bend in silence o'er the countless Dead;
Marks with loud sobs infantine Sorrows rave,
And wring their pale hands o'er their Mother's grave;
Hears on the new-turn'd sod with gestures wild
The kneeling Beauty call her buried child;
Upbraid with timorous accents Heaven's decrees,
And with sad sighs augment the passing breeze.
`Stern Time,' She cries, `received from Nature's womb
Her beauteous births, and bears them to the tomb;
Calls all her sons from earth's remotest bourn,
And from the closing portals none return!