Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Pause here awhile! and on these ruins look,
Worn with the footsteps of forgotten years;
Peruse this page in Time's black-lettered book;
Gaze long, and read how he his trophies rears.
See how each shattered shrine and sculptured nook,
The deep grey impress of his footmark bears.
Who was it reared this ponderous pile of stone?
Ask Time! he only knows, who now reigns here alone.

II

View it when sunset through that arch doth stream,
Throwing a solemn splendour on the pile;
When the tall pillars flash back every beam,
And dusky crimson fills the vaulted aisle,
While the bowed roof of darker hue doth seem,
As if it frowned upon the mocking smile
That gilds the ruins with a golden grey,
And with its gloomy look would chase the light away.

III

Gaze on that oriel now, 'tis shorn of all
Its saintly forms, and gaudy colourings;
The deep blue tunic, and the purple pall,
The glowing gold that formed the vests of kings
No longer flash at sunset on the wall;
Gone are the chequered angels' rainbowed wings,
The hollow wind alone blows bleakly there,
And the cold moonlight comes through the broad blank to stare.

IV

Altar, and crucifix, are now o'erthrown,
The wild-brier waves where Mary Mother smiled;
And He whose sculptured agony had grown
Grim as the ruins round about Him piled,
Rude hands have ages long ago hurled down;
But Time has sanctified what man defiled:
Though gone the Virgin's shrine, and thorn-crown'd brow,
It ne'er more holy seemed, more meet for prayer than now.

V

See how the roof from clustering columns sprung,
Like some high forest-walk embowered and lone;
No branch is there in wild disorder flung,
But each arched bough has with its fellow grown,
Looking as if, while they in beauty hung,
Their growth was check'd, and changed at once to stone;
The bundled stems of each low arm bereft,
And their wide-spreading boughs for spanning arches left.

VI

And from the ruined roof with fixèd frown,
See the Enchanter's gaze who changed the scene,
With stony eyes doomed to look ever down,
(The corbels locked each springing arch between,)
Waiting for Summer's green or Autumn's brown,
The aching grey around once more to skreen:
So fancy deemed did think those forms of stone,
Which on the cold floor looked, and heard the wind's low moan.

VII

Drooping between the oriel and the sky,
Like a dark banner the green ivy waves;
Casting a shadow where the dead still lie,
Or moving to and fro athwart their graves
Like silent spectres, ever gliding by,
With noiseless motion when the tempest raves;
Chequering the tombs with many a varied light,
The pale now sombered o'er, then dusk, or silver-bright.

VIII

There was a time when, mid these ruins grey,
The pomp of Church and Chivalry were seen;
Amice and armour mingled there to pray;
And Beauty from those galleries did lean,
(Watching the entrance of the long array,
The abbot haught, and knight of austere mien,)
Her drooping eyelids glancing down abashed,
As some plumed warrior's gaze from the raised vizor flashed.

IX

But they are gone! the dead that sleep below,
Have left no record of their boasted deeds:
That time-worn stone once bore what thou wouldst know,
And could it speak would tell how moss and weeds
Did o'er its frail and chiselled glory grow;
But now within nought save the blind-worm feeds:
Where is the heart of Bruce? look round and see;
Perchance that nodding thistle yet may answer thee.

X

No more their war-cry shakes the battle-field,
Their trumpets wake the armèd throng no more;
The cold grey granite is their only shield;
The tide of war has died upon the shore:
They who dealt death, to death themselves did yield:
The worms feed on those iron men of yore.
Look round and weep! here's all that thou canst see,
Of pomp, and pride, and power, and gorgeous chivalry.

XI

And on these mighty landmarks of the past,
The heart still rests, and scarcely dares to beat;
A silence falls upon us deep and vast:
It seems a land where Life and Death now meet,
And calmly on each other gaze at last;
Looking like friends amid this still retreat;
Still as Eternity with ruins crowned,
Gazing on the mute world that's stretched in silence round.