LXIV.

Others, that some original shape, or form

Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power
(Though less than that of Memnon's statue,1 warm
In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fixed hour)
To this grey ruin: with a voice to charm,

Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower;
The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such
The fact:-I've heard it,—once perhaps too much.2

LXV.

Amidst the court a Gothic fountain played,
Symmetrical, but decked with carvings quaint-
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,

And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:
The spring gushed through grim mouths of granite made,
And sparkled into basins, where it spent

Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
Like man's vain Glory, and his vainer troubles.

LXVI.

The Mansion's self was vast and venerable,

With more of the monastic than has been
Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable,
The cells, too, and Refectory, I ween:
An exquisite small chapel had been able,
Still unimpaired, to decorate the scene;
The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,
And spoke more of the baron than the monk.

LXVII.

Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined
By no quite lawful marriage of the arts,

1. [Vide ante, The Deformed Transformed, Part I. line 532, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 497.]

2. This is not a frolic invention; it is useless to specify the spot, or in what county, but I have heard it both alone and in company with those who will never hear it more. It can, of course, be accounted for by some natural or accidental cause, but it was a strange sound, and unlike any other I have ever heard (and I have heard many above and below the surface of the earth produced in ruins, etc., etc., or caverns). [MS.}

["The unearthly sound" may still be heard at rare intervals, but it is difficult to believe that the "huge arch" can act as an Æolian harp. Perhaps the smaller lancet windows may vocalize the wind.]