Save the shrill plaints of some unsocial bird, That seeks the house of solitude to rest.

Save when their tinkling leaders, to the shade
Of these cool grots, invite the flee cy folds;
Where oft the sated ox, supinely laid,
With lowing herds a distant converse holds.

Or where the Gothic pillar's slender form, Unequal to the incumbent quarry's weight, Deserts its post, and, reeling to the storm, With sullen crash resigns its charge to Fate,

While the self planted oak, within confined (Auxiliar to the tempest's wild uproar) Its giant branches, fluctuates to the wind, And rends the wall whose aid it courts no more.

Here too, (belief could old tradition claim,) Where swells the rocky mound in shapeless heaps,

(His name now lost, his guilt divulged by Fame,)

Some rude dismantler of this abbey sleeps.

Long, long, in thought the patient earth he cursed,

That bore the fabric's then unbroken spires; Long wish'd the power to bid volcanoes burst,

Or call from heaven thought-executing fires.

"Wide wave," he cry'd, "all bright with golden grain,

*The neighbouring vales, while this proud cumbrous mass

"For many a barren furlong chills the plain,

"And draws with idle zeal the crowds that

pass.

"No more the votaries of each time-shook

pile,

"As Ruin's heirs, shall call these shades their own;

"For blazoa'd arms explore the pageant aisle, "Or search dark registers of faithless stone.”

He spoke,-resolved -The menaced arches frown'd,

The conscious walls in sudden conflict join'd,

Crush'd the pale wretch in one promiscuous

wound,

And left this monument of wrath behind.

Scenes such as these, with salutary change, O'er flattering life their melancholy cast; Teach the free thoughts on wings of air to

range,

O'erlook the present, and recall the past!

Here pious beadsmen, from the world retired, In blissful visions wing'd their souls to heaven;

While future joys their sober transports fired, They wept their e. ring days, and were for given.

Their blameless race succeeding, in these cells,
Ere death imposed the lesson learn d to die;
Alike forgot, no raised memorial tells
In which lone spot their kindred astres lie!

Mute is the matin bell, whose early call Warn'd the grey fathers from their humble

beds;

G

No midnight taper gleams along the wall Or round the sculptured saint its radiance sheds!

No martr's shrine its high-wrought gold dis

plays,

To bid the wondering zealot hither roam;
No relick here the pilgrim's toil o'erpays,
And cheers his footsteps to a distant home.

Still twilight now its shade a Ivancing throws,
Faint in the west the day's last blush is seen;
On night's dim front the stai of evening glows,
And gilds with distant beams the solemn scene.

Illusion now repeoples all the void,
From death recalls the venerable train
(Whose thoughts no more earth's trivial
cares employ'd)

To tread their ancient bounds and weep again.

Swift as he wish, the embody'd shades appear; O'er paths muevanged, with doubtful step they walk;

Each eye rolls fast the visionary tear, And listening Fancy thinks she hears them talk.

"Say, reverend forms, in contemplation's hour,

"While life serene its golden current roll'd, "Did no kind warning, no prophetic power, "This ravaged mansion's future woes unfold?

"Did ye ne'er think the page of joy, would close?

"Ne'er dread a royal plunderer's mighty

hand;

"Your exiled order's yet unnumber'd woes, "Their name extinguish'd, and their rites profaned !"

Silent they pass!—then, fading like a dream, To seek their lone unhonour'd graves return; Yet fleeting they bequeath a sigh, and seem With me these violated groves to mourn.

Yon parted roofs, that nod aloft in air,
The threatening battlement, the rifted tower,