And scarce their foam the pebbles shook, And the wide hum of that wild host Such as when winds and harp-strings meet, Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell. NORMAN ABBEY. To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair,- Still older mansion, of a rich and rare It stood embosomed in a happy valley, Crown'd by high woodlands, where the Druid oak Stood, like Caractacus in act to rally His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunder-stroke; The branching stag swept down with all his herd, Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its soften'd way did take In currents through the calmer water spread Around the wild fowl nestled in the brake And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood With their green faces fix'd upon the flood. Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding Its shriller echoes-like an infant made Quiet sank into softer ripples, gliding Into a rivulet, and thus allay'd, Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue, According as the skies their shadows threw. A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile, [apart (While yet the church was Rome's) stood half In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle. The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil, Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle, [march, Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone; And these had fallen, not when the friars fell, But in the war which struck Charles-from his When each house was a fortalice as tell The annals of full many a line undone,— The gallant Cavaliers, who fought in vain For those who knew not to resign or reign. But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd, [throne, The Virgin Mother of the God-born child, But even the faintest relics of a shrine Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings, But in the noontide of the moon, and when The wind is winged from one point of heaven, There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again. Others, that some original shape, or form Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power (Though less than that of Memnon's statue, 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. Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd, Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaintStrange faces, like to men in masquerade, And here perhaps a monster, there a saint: Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles, The mansion's self was vast and venerable, [made, 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 unimpair'd, to decorate the scene; The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk, Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, join'd Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts. Steel Barons, molten the next generation To silken rows of gay and garter'd Earls, Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely. Were there, with brows that did not much invite The accused to think their Lordships would determine His cause by leaning much from might to right; Bishops who had not left a single sermon ; Attornies-General, awful to the sight, As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us) And iron time ere Lead had ta'en the lead; Nimrods, whose canvas scarce contain❜d the steed; And here and there some stern high patriot stool, Who could not get the place for which he sued. But ever and anon, to soothe your vision, Fatigued with these hereditary glories, H |