MIDNIGHT MARY - Karen Kobela - a song that really wrote itself. Taken from a story in New Britain, CT, Herald, 10/31/75

A restless spirit it is said, at midnight she does arise
From a great pink granite gravestone each night at this time I surmise.
She joins the other spirits for a stroll amid the shadows
In New Haven's Evergreen Cemetery and they call her Midnight Mary.

The chapel bell has tolled 10 times, the black iron gate clangs shut.
The mortals are gone, the day is done, and the moon has just come out.
This place now belongs to the spirits, the gravestones, maples and oaks.
Now Mary awakes as she tried long ago and comes back to life for a while.

There are so many tales from the past, over 127 years ago.
Since Mary was laid in her coffin to rest, in 1872.
One tells of a horse and wagon driven by the gate late at night
In the gloom of midnight the wagon, sunk in the earth out of sight.

Another tale recalls a young man who stood a midnight vigil by the tomb.
His body, the tale goes, was found the next day, the sight was one of dark gloom.
His clothes were all snagged in the bushes, the look on his face was of fear.
No one ever knew what happened to him, the young man did not live to tell.

But the most ghostly legend of all, tells of the death of Mary herself.
The story goes that she fell unconscious of a rare disease,
That left her in a death-like state of suspended animation.
She was buried on that October day, but revived inside her coffin.

Her aunt who lived across the street awoke during the night in horror.
She saw a vision of her niece clawing at the lid of her coffin.
The coffin was opened the next day, but Mary she was found dead.
But her body all cramped and twisted showed, that she had struggled to live.

The keepers of the Evergreen Cemetery, say that they know nothing of this,
But admit that no one now is alive to remember that long ago.
We'll never know if this tale is true but the stone is there and these words:

"At high noon, just from and about to renew her daily work in her full strength of body and mind, Mary E. Hart, having fallen prostrate remained unconscious until she died at midnight, October 15, 1872 - Born, December 16, 1824."

And across the top of the gravestone are the words:

THE PEOPLE SHALL BE TROUBLED AT MIDNIGHT AND PASS AWAY.

I've been to the cemetery in New Haven, CT and have photos of the stone.

karen k