NORMAN ABBEY. Byron. To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair,— 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; The branching stag swept down with all his herd, Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade, Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding, 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, (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, Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's march, In gazing on that venerable arch. 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. 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 spoil'd; She made the earth below seem holy ground :- But even the faintest relics of a shrine Of any worship, wake some thoughts divine. 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. But in the noontide of the moon, and when Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again. Back to the night wind by the waterfall, 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 grey ruin, with a voice to charm. Sad but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower; Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd, Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint,Strange faces, like to men in masquerade, And here, perhaps, a monster, there a saint: The spring gush'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. Don Juan. THE CASTILIAN NUPTIALS. And days fled A cloud came o'er my destiny. The dream of passion soon was past, Upon the bosom mine had prest. Life had no ill I would not brave, To claim him, even in the grave! L. E. L. FAIR is the form that in yon orange bower, The floor, and fragrant bloom the canopy, And perfumed shrubs the pillars, round whose stems Which, playing with the trembling lamp, flings round • Understood to be Miss Landon, the fair author of those deservedly popular poems, "The Improvisatrice," and "The Troubadour." And brightening every hue,-now lost in shade, Are thickening round; but though the tempest's wing And calm, and soothing now; no rougher sounds The tempest of the heart, the evil war O'er that bright creature's head, whose fairy bower She is most beautiful! The richest tint That e'er with rose light dyed a summer cloud, Of some fine touch has moulded it to beauty. The night pass'd on-she touch'd the silver chords, |