 | Songs and Poems by George Sigerson |  |
THE SILENT ABBEY
The abbey stands knee-deep in graves,
Mouldering bones bestrew its naves,
Ivy-gloomed, its cells are caves,
Starved fern from the gable waves,
Fallen roof the chancel paves,
Man cannot enter in, for graves,—
The Ruin is so old!
Mouldering bones bestrew its naves,
Ivy-gloomed, its cells are caves,
Starved fern from the gable waves,
Fallen roof the chancel paves,
Man cannot enter in, for graves,—
The Ruin is so old!
Lone-looming 'mid the living plains,
Black with ancient fire its fanes,
Grey its tower with million rains,
Splasht its walls with lichen stains,
Lime adown the dark arch drains,
Restless aye the wind complains
Through the dull-resounding fanes—
The Ruin is so old!
Black with ancient fire its fanes,
Grey its tower with million rains,
Splasht its walls with lichen stains,
Lime adown the dark arch drains,
Restless aye the wind complains
Through the dull-resounding fanes—
The Ruin is so old!
55
Thither, on a noon, a child
Came, through splinters sparse and piled,
Something there his heart beguiled:
Lo, 'mid desolation wild,
Through the portal, grave-defiled,
Where man could not, goes the child—
The Ruin is so old!
Came, through splinters sparse and piled,
Something there his heart beguiled:
Lo, 'mid desolation wild,
Through the portal, grave-defiled,
Where man could not, goes the child—
The Ruin is so old!
On a Sabbath noon, and so,
Far-off chimes float to and fro,
Now, all dying, cease to go.
He makes sudden start, for lo!
Faint sweet chimes awake and flow,
Serving Mass as long ago
In the lonesome fane,—although
The Ruin is so old!
Far-off chimes float to and fro,
Now, all dying, cease to go.
He makes sudden start, for lo!
Faint sweet chimes awake and flow,
Serving Mass as long ago
In the lonesome fane,—although
The Ruin is so old!
| Songs and Poems by George Sigerson | |