I'm "at my old Lunes"-digression, and forget
The Lady Adeline Amundeville;

The fair most fatal Juan ever met,
Although she was not evil nor meant ill;

But Destiny and Passion spread the net,

(Fate is a good excuse for our own will,)

And caught them; what do they not catch, methinks? But I'm not Edipus, and life's a sphinx.

To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair,
An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion, of a rich and rare

Mix'd Gothic, such as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
Withal: it lies perhaps a little low,
Because the monks preferr'd a hill behind,
To shelter their devotion from the wind
LVI.

It stood embosom'd 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;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters-as day awoke,
The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmur'd like a bird.

LVII.

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.

LVIII.

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.

LIX.

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile

(While yet the church was Rome's) stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle. These last had disappear'd-a loss to art:

'The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil,

And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,

LXI.

But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,
The Virgin Mother of the God-born child,
With her son in her bless'd arms, look'd round,
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoild
She made the earth below seem holy ground
This may be superstition, weak or wild,
But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.
LXII.

A mighty window, hollow in the centre,

Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings, Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings, Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter, The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire.

LXIII.

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 Is musical-a dying accent driven

Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again,

Some deem it but the distant echo given

Back to the night-wind by the waterfall,
And harmonized by the old choral wall:

LXIV.

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 fix'd hour) To this gray 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.

LXV.

Amid 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:

The spring rush'd 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 unimpair'd, to decorate the scene;
The rest had been reform'd, replaced, or sunk.
And spoke more of the baron than the monk.

LXVII.

LX.

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,

Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone: But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,

But in the war which struck Charles from his throne, 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.

Nor judge at first if all be true to nature.