Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet But when the wreath of March has blossomed, Crocus, anemone, violet, Or later, pay one visit here, For those are few we hold as dear; Nor pay but one, but come for many, Many and many a happy year. Alfred Tennyson. Fletching. THE BELLS OF FLETCHING. THE Fletching bells, with silver chime, Come softened o'er the distant shore; Though I have heard them many a time, They never sang so sweet before. A silence rests upon the hill, A listening awe pervades the air; The very flowers are shut and still, And bowed as if in prayer. Anonymous. Fonthill Abbey. FONTHILL ABBEY. THE mighty master waved his wand, and, lo! Whilst from the painted windows' long array Be broken that arrayed those radiant forms so well! A Fountain's Abbey. FOUNTAIN'S ABBEY. LAS, alas! those ancient towers, But lonely at the midnight hours No more beneath the moonlight dim, That bears life's meaner cares away. No more within some cloistered cell, The world-worn heart can beat alone. How needful some such tranquil place, How many, too heart-sick to roam Anonymous. A FOUNTAIN'S ABBEY. BBEY! forever smiling pensively, How like a thing of Nature dost thou rise, Amid her loveliest works! as if the skies, Clouded with grief, were arched thy roof to be, And the tall trees were copied all from thee! Mourning thy fortunes, while the waters dim Flow like the memory of thy evening hymn; Beautiful in their sorrowing sympathy, As if they with a weeping sister wept, Winds name thy name! But thou, though sad, art calm, Ebenezer Elliott. Furness Abbey. TO FURNESS ABBEY. I. MOD, with a mighty and an outstretched hand, His witness lifted 'twixt the Irish Sea And that still beauteous, once faith-hallowed land. Stand as a sign, monastic prophet, stand! Thee, thee the speechless, God hath stablished thee To be his Baptist, crying ceaselessly In spiritual deserts like that Syrian sand! Man's little race around thee creep and crawl, Thou restest, while the world around thee reels; Cries to a proud, weak age, "Repent, repent!' II. IRTUE goes forth from thee and sanctifies VIRTU That once so peaceful shore whose peace is lost, To-day doubt-dimmed, and inly tempest-tost, Virtue most healing when sealed up it lies In relics, like thy ruins. Enmities Thou hast not. Thy gray towers sleep on mid dust; But in the resurrection of the just Thy works, contemned to-day, once more shall rise. So dear. Thy twin in greatness, clad with gloom, Art holier -O, how much!—to hearts not base. Aubrey de Vere. |