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29o THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF |
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Lone you are to-day, and dismal, — Joyful psalms no more are heard
Where, within your choir, her vesper Screeches the cat-headed bird.
Ivy from your eaves is growing,
Nettles round your green hearth-stone,
Foxes howl, where, in your corners, Dropping waters make their moan.
Where the lark to early matins Used your clergy forth to call,
There ! alas no tongue is stirring, Save the daws' upon the wall.
Refectory cold and empty,
Dormitory bleak and bare, Where are now your pious uses,
Simple bed'and frugal fare?
Gone your abbot, rule, and order, Broken down your altar stones;
Naught see I beneath your shelter ' Save a heap of clayey bones.
Oh ! the hardship, oh ! the hatred,
Tyranny, and cruel war, Persecution and oppression,
That have left you as you are!
I myself once also prospered ; — Mine is, too, an altered plight.
Trouble, care, and age have left me Good for naught but grief to-night. |
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