Page:Tea, a poem.pdf/21

21 that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patroling the conntry; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.

The sequestrated situation of this church seems always to have made it a favourite haunt of trouled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian parity, beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the 'blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of allen trees. Over a deep black part of