Over the water an old ghost strode <br />To a churchyard on the shore, <br />And over him the waters had flowed <br />A thousand years or more, <br />And pale and wan and weary <br />Looked never a sprite as he; <br />For it's lonely and it's dreary <br />The ghost of a body to be <br />That has mouldered away in the sea. <br /> <br />Over the billows the old ghost stepped, <br />And the winds in mockery sung; <br />For the bodiless ghost would fain have wept <br />Over the maiden that lay so young <br />'Mong the thistles and toadstools so hoary; <br />And he begged of the waves a tear, <br />But they shook upwards their moonlight glory, <br />And the shark looked on with a sneer <br />At his yearning desire and agony.<br /><br />Thomas Lovell Beddoes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-old-ghost/
